 Why I can't vote for Trump to give you some perspective on my political views I was president of the young Republicans in high school at the age of 17 I pulled an all-nighter making signs for a rally for George HW Bush in his race against Bill Clinton for reelection in College I was the county chair of the Libertarian Party for a few months. I Consider myself an independent voter and a free thinker Sure, I skew liberal because I'm a non-believer and a scientist But I'm also a Texan who grew up in a blue-collar town a middle-class white guy who owns guns and has two kids that I want to succeed in life That being said I do have a litmus test for which candidate I can and can't support and That's an adherence by the candidate to scientific reality and reason and that's why I Absolutely cannot support Donald Trump He is the most actively Anti-science anti-reason candidate to be the nominee for a major party in my lifetime. I Want to lay out my reasoning for you? Number one he thinks climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese This was a tweet and it was a few years ago But his platform is built on climate change denialism and actively opposing the researchers who study climate change He's pledged to cancel the Paris climate Accords The likely consequence of his election is that the other major emitters on the accord China and India Will certainly pull out He's pledged to scrap the clean power plant which aims to slowly reduce power plant emissions by 35 percent of 2005 values He's pledged to eliminate the EPA as a federal agency While I understand you may not like them They do fund quite a lot of environmental health research Including testing for bacteria and drinking water and a biotic resistance arising from agriculture and damage to ecosystems That's sustained parts of our economy Number two He's certain that vaccines cause autism because of too many too soon His twitter feed shows his personal views To quote him Autism way up. I believe in vaccinations, but not massive all at once shots too much for small child to handle government should stop now and I'm not against vaccinations for your children. I'm against them in one massive dose Spread them out over a period of time and autism will drop He claims the doctors lied and we need to stop vaccinations to Save our children and the future He met with andrew wakefield about promoting his documentary vaxed number three He propagated panic and fear about ebola proposing a complete withdrawal from responses to the outbreak When experts on infectious disease Doctors with experience treating patients and maintaining quarantines give advice I hope politicians will listen. I count on it. In fact So when trump called for a blanket travel ban on countries with ebola outbreaks In opposition to CDC recommendations. I was disappointed When he said that american doctors who chose to travel to africa to try and contain the disease And he mainly treat the sick and i'm quoting here must suffer the consequences And shouldn't be allowed to return to the us for treatment Even when a panel of experts cleared the procedures as having essentially zero risk. I was even more disappointed Trump was acting out of fear and ignorance And he didn't have the basic humility that he might not understand the medical threat posed by ebola virus Number four his vice president mike pence is an anti-science poster child Pence is a creationist and a supporter of the teach the controversy wedge strategy of the intelligent design movement Pence claimed that smoking doesn't kill or that regulations are more harmful than the second hand smoke exposure that they prevent Pence is strongly opposed to stem cell research and abortion Even in the case of genetic abnormalities incompatible with life Number five trump has pledged to downsize or even eliminate the federal department of education And reduce funding for primary schools He's tied it all to common core, which has apparently become some sort of republican rallying cry But the end result of his platform is less funding for math science and engineering education His arguments seem to be based on the idea of getting the federal government out of the education of children altogether Using common core as an example of federal meddling Which is odd since common core is adopted at the state board of education level. So it's already local and not federal Number six He's ignored or given minimal responses to every debate or question posed to him on the subject of science In 2008 a written science debate was started by members of congress with a panel of non-partisan scientists selecting the questions people like laurence krauss and chris mooney Trump of all the candidates responded with the fewest words paragraphs and specific policy statements Some answers on topics as complex as how they plan on dealing with overfishing and ocean health Got no more than two sentences neither of which gave any specifics He didn't even answer the american cancer societies two questions for their voters guide The answers simply say the candidates campaign did not respond number seven He's allied himself with conspiracy mongers like alex jones Who has been described as america's leading conspiracy theorist? Jones is the leading voice in declaring political figures to be demons or reptiloids He claims everything from the sandy hook shooting to the 9 11 tragedy are false flag operations by the cia Or a shadowy government agency to be declared He links vaccines and chem trails to government mind control Frankly, he couldn't be more extreme So it was a surprise to me that trump would agree to appear on the alex jones show But also a big red flag In fact their views overlap on a number of issues including vaccines global warming And whether president obama is a u.s citizen In short a vote for trump is to me a vote for creationist ken hoven A vote for vaccine denialist jenny mccarthy A vote for climate change denialist christopher montan A vote for a reality denialist alex jones And i could never vote for those people I can't say that i'm thrilled at the prospect of electing hillary clinton I object to the fact that she's the wife of a former president Just as i objected to the bush family legacy It highlights the hereditary power elite nature of our oligarchy. I also dislike her pandering to focus groups With all of that said She's attracted the best and brightest scientists to her campaign And their influence on her responses to questions Shows that she at least listens to what they say She's come out with detailed plans including budgets and research aims for curing alzheimer's disease Dealing with overfishing climate change opioid abuse and antibiotic resistance She's signaled strong support for cancer research hiv AIDS testing And she has a long history of supporting public health measures And working to make sure no child gets sick because their parents can't afford their care She's my candidate not because i like her as a person or the idea of her But because i think trump will be the worst thing to happen to american science In recent memory Thanks for watching go vote