I want a president…
by Pauline Park
17 October 2016

I want a president who reflects my values, not the values of the Wall Street oligarchy as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump do.

I want a president who stands up to Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry instead of fanning the flames of prejudice and hatred as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do.

I want a president who will curb the military/industrial complex instead of enabling its excesses with bloated budgets as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would do.

I want a president who isn’t an enormously wealthy embodiment of class privilege as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are, multi-milllionaires who represent the interests of the oligarchy.

I want a president who doesn’t pander to voters or condescend as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do but who addresses the real issues in a serious and policy-oriented manner.

I want a president who is willing to do something about global warming and climate change, unlike Donald Trump, a global warming denialist, and Hillary Clinton, whose agenda is to promote fracking, the new energy technology that’s contributing more to global warming than any other.

I want a president who really thinks #BlackLivesMatter instead of denigrating the BLM movement like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do.

I want a president who actually understands the corporate culture of police violence in this country like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and is willing to address this serious problem affecting LGBT people and people of color, especially LGBT people of color.

I want a president who tells the truth and isn’t a pathological liar like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

I want a president who will challenge and downsize the National Security agency and end its illegal surveillance of US citizens and others instead of enabling the NSA like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

I want a president who will end support for and subsidies to brutal dictatorships in Honduras, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and elsewhere instead of supporting and enabling them like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

I want a president who will challenge and downsize the military/industrial complex, unlike Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who would further enable its excesses.

I want a president who will take the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people seriously, unlike Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

I want a president who will stop subsidizing the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do but who instead will end US subsidies to Israel’s brutal apartheid regime in illegally occupied Palestine.

I want a president who will challenge Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip instead of supporting its policy of incremental genocide in Gaza instead as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do.

I want a president who knows where Aleppo is, unlike Gary Johnson.

I want a president like Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee, who reflects my progressive feminist values instead of embodying anti-progressive, anti-feminist politics as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do.

I want a president like Jill Stein, the only feminist and the only progressive in the race~!

I want all Americans to vote for Jill Stein as president and say #NeverHillaryOrTrump; #JillNotHill~!

This is a statement read by Pauline Park (without any of the candidate references) on the High Line in Manhattan on 17 October 2016 as part of a project referencing Zoe Leonard’s poem, “I Want a President.”

Pauline Park led the campaign for the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002 and participated in the first US LGBTQ delegation tour of Palestine in 2012; Park did her M.Sc. in European studies at the London School of Economics & Political Science and her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.