Dear Hillary, I Am Not Deplorable

Hillary, you recently labeled me — and millions of Americans like me — “deplorable.”

I am not deplorable. What I am is your worst nightmare: a woman, a mother, and a voter who sees right through you.

In your remarks to an LGBT group, with liberal millionaire mouthpiece Barbara Streisand hosting your appearance, you waved your invisible scepter and banished millions of people from respectable society, just because you felt like it.

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“Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it,” you said on Friday. “There are people like that, and [Trump] has lifted them up.”

Well, I’m concerned about national security, supportive of law enforcement, and a believer in traditional marriage. How does that make me “deplorable”?

Your comments that followed on Saturday — carefully crafted to try to stem any damage you did to your campaign — were too late, too little, and too transparent. You said your earlier comments were “grossly generalistic,” yet you didn’t apologize for them.

My family tree is made up of pastors and bootleggers, sinners and saints. I remember my grandfather, a preacher and a product of his upbringing in the segregated South, calling black people “colored.” Was it right? That was the term people used back then. But he made sure his children got an education. They learned better and they brought that knowledge home with them. By the end of his life of service and sacrifice, you would never, ever hear that word from him again.

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My husband and I married young and didn’t have two nickels to rub together. On our honeymoon, he wore his “good shoes” that had holes in their soles — and I prayed it wouldn’t rain, so his feet would stay dry. We were broke, but we believed that God had a purpose for us, and that we were growing our family under His protection and grace.

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We have three sons, and we struggled so I could stay home to raise them, working at night and in any free hours I had. One son is a landscaper, one is a businessman, and one is a high-schooler. I raised them not to be sophisticated men, but instead strong, moral men who contribute to society. They support themselves, they thank every cop and veteran they see, and they make us proud by being young Americans of substance.

My husband and I have worked tirelessly to attain the American dream. Now that we are more financially stable through the fruits of our labor, we turn and help others in need as often as we can. That is the beauty of capitalism, and of personal responsibility.

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Your candidacy has one particular fatal flaw, Hillary. You don’t allow for human differences, and you don’t see people as capable of growth through education and a free market system that raises them up. Your presidency would instead kill dreams slowly, through the erasure of a stable, healthy middle class.

We aren’t real people to you. Instead, you see us only as votes, statistics, data points. We either agree with you entirely, or we are “deplorable.”

No, Hillary. We aren’t deplorable. We are America. We come in all shapes, colors, sizes, experiences, and denominations. And we feel individually and as a country that with the right leader at the helm of this country — our best days are yet to come.

And you are not that leader.