This is my painted variation of one of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can silk screen paintings with a political influence from one of my favorite artists Honore Daumier. I have always loved Warhol’s silk screen works and the cleverness of portraying something mundane (something “canned”) as monumental. Daumier was a 19th century printmaker, painter, and social satirist who’s work I immediately thought of when the idea of this painting first occurred to me.

Like many others, I was less than pleased with the choice facing our nation in the late fall of 2016. Early on I recognized that Donald Trump might win the Republican nomination for President of the United States. He was saying exactly what many Americans wished to hear and exactly what many wished to say themselves. I also recognized that the Democratic National Committee had already chosen their candidate even before the primary process had begun and was simply counting on me to vote for their candidate because I had no choice. This painting is an attempt to crystalize mythoughts about the election between these two candidates. I thought of something so beloved and so American as a pint of Ben & Jerry’s filled with a choice of flavors not particularly desirable to one side of the political fence, nor the other. The following explains the words I used in the work to describe the candidates and illustrate my thoughts.

“Dickhead Swirl” 

Donald Trump has bragged about cheating on his wives and also about sleeping with married women. That’s what a dick does. 

Trump has often been accused of stiffing small contractors out of payments for work done or for goods furnished because he knew they were not wealthy enough to bring suit against him to recover their losses. And by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection “six” times he has financially protected himself while hanging many small contractors and business associates “out to dry.” Dickhead moves.

Donald Trump also led the “birther” movement which accused President Obama of being born in Kenya and not in Hawaii. It actually wouldn’t of mattered. Barack Obama’s mother was a United States citizen and thus he was by definition a naturalized citizen. He could just have easily been born in Canada with a U.S. mom and still run for the office, just like Ted Cruz was doing. It was because he was black. This was a racist movement attempting to delegitimatize Obama’s presidency. Trump is very proud of his involvement in this slanderous campaign. Racist dickhead.

Trump’s reaction to Megyn Kelly’s debate questions, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever” and his referring to attorney Elizabeth Beck as “disgusting” because she needed to break from a court proceeding in order to pump breast milk for her infant daughter, illustrates his level of discomfort with the very physiological nature of a woman. He stated his disbelief that a woman could even be President by expressing his disgust towards Carly Fiorina when he said, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” during a Republican debate. He has bragged to Howard Stern about popping into dressing rooms to catch contestants of his beauty pageants in a state of undress (according to various contestants this even includes his teen pageants). Many women have accused him of sexually groping them and Trump was caught by a live microphone explaining to Billy Bush how he has sexually molested women in the past. This actually goes from dickhead to misogynist but I’ll stick to the theme.

Trump imitated and mocked Serge Kovaleski, a disabled reporter from The New York Times during a campaign rally. After he was called out for his behavior, I noticed he was attempting to recreate these same movements, for a brief time, by attacking others in an attempt to make it seem that he wasn’t mocking a disabled person in the first place and it was just part of his standard “Trump mock routine.” But if you notice, he hasn’t used those exaggerated movements since when attacking others. Too late dickhead, we saw what you did.

He’s a braggart. He brags about how much money he has, how intelligent he his, and how he is the best businessman in the world. He has declared bankruptcy six times, failed at every business he has ever started on his own (besides some real estate ventures), and a leaked portion of his 1995 state income taxes show losses of 916 million dollars for that year alone. If that is what constitutes a “good” businessman then what makes a bad one? Someone who actually “makes” 916 million dollars in a year? Braggarts are dickheads.

He lies a lot. Whether it is about how badly the media treats him, how terrorist attacks are under reported, Barack Obama’s birth certificate, that President Obama tapped his phones, the murder rate in our country, or even something as stupid as crowd sizes, his statements are often more factually incorrect than correct. Liars are dickheads. He is often misinformed on many facts and seems to get his intelligence briefings from FOX news. Dickheads love misinformation.

“Xtreme White Ice Cream”

Whether it was his attacks on Mexican immigrants, his desire to ban Muslims, associations with the alt right, leading the birther movement or his allusions to violence at his rallies when he said, in “the old days” a demonstrator would be “carried out on a stretcher,” Donald was clearly running a campaign aimed at a particular portion of the white electorate. But what “old days” was he referring to in his rally? Was this the old days his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again!” referred to? When was this day when America was great? Was that when African Americans were counted as three-fifths of a person or when women weren’t allowed to vote? Was that when women were expected to stay home and raise babies or when a black person had to give up his or her seat on the bus? Maybe it was the time when homosexual and transgender people had to hide in shame or when it was alright to call someone jewish if they were trying to save money in some fashion? Was it before unions when children worked in factories and Americans worked for poverty wages up to sixteen hours a day in unsafe and dangerous conditions? Maybe he means before the Civil Rights Movement or when women had no control over their own reproductive care? The fact is that for many white males (and all rich white males) this country has always been great. But for everyone else, I’m not so sure of when that moment in time was. 

“with Real Fake Stale Circus Peanuts” 

From his escalator announcement with its paid attendees to his talking about penis size in a presidential debate, this campaign was a circus. The amount of lies and the amount of misinformation generated was at once real and fake. The excitement was real. He found a beloved base who adored someone who had no filter whatsoever and didn’t care who or how he insulted people they felt were part of the problem. But his promises were not real. No, a foreign country (Mexico) is not paying for structures to be built here in the United States. No, coal isn’t coming back nor was there ever a liberal war against it. The cheapness of oil and natural gas, landscapes devastated, acid rain, pollution of the air and water, dangerous work conditions and global warming are what’s waging a war on coal. Tax cuts for the rich? Are we still talking about these stale Republican ideas? You can almost mark the very start of the shrinking of the middle class to the enactment of Ronald Reagan’s first tax cuts. This is when the national debt exploded and the federal government began cutting more and more social programs and safety nets for its citizens while money was funneled to the rich. This was the first true experiment in trickle down economics. Donald Trump, himself, has said that U.S. wages are too high and has waffled on minimum wage. But he firmly believes that people in his tax bracket should pay less in taxes. I have heard these wealthy people characterized as “job creators.” But they aren’t, consumers are. Consumers and their choices in where and how to spend their money are what determines which jobs will flourish or decline. And also the idea of trickle down economics assumes that poor or middle class families would have no idea what to do with extra money if they had it. Surely they would eat or bury any additional income instead of spending or investing it. But the reality is that economies are successfully built and maintained from the bottom up. Yes, it takes innovative and industrious business people and financial visionaries, but they don’t mean a sack of beans unless there are consumers with enough money to buy their products. A one million dollar tax break to a multi-millionaire or billionaire causes far less growth in our economy and grows fewer jobs than would a thousand dollar tax break (or even subsidy) to a thousand different middle class or poorer families. A thousand families would be buying dishwashers, televisions, clothes, or whatever they needed thus fueling economic growth in a thousand different neighborhoods as opposed to just one wealthy household. Donald Trump was running on the failed economic ideas of the past, stale Circus Peanut ideas, ideas that are very real in that many in the government and in the media still sing their praises but fake in their true ability to help real Americans and to slow (instead of causing) the transfer of wealth from the bottom rungs of the ladder to the top.

“No Choice Nougat”

Based on everything stated above you can see why I felt I had no choice in voting against Donald Trump. But I understand that many Trump voters felt as if they had no choice either. Hillary Clinton was not going to give them a conservative Supreme Court Justice nor was she promising to resurrect dying industries or recreate the happier times of the 1950’s or 1830’s. And to others who wanted to “blow up” the system, well Hillary certainly wasn’t going to do that. 

“Some Sorta of Ice Cream” 

It was clear throughout the primary campaign that the Democratic National Committee had already chosen who their candidate was going to be. I believe it discouraged many possible candidates on the left from running and thus diminished the strength of the field. The overwhelming majority of super delegates pledged their support to her before the first primary vote was even cast. But it was the lack of focus of her campaign and the lack of clear vision that was most troubling for many voters like me. His message was “Make America Great Again.” That has both “America” and “Great” in it. Hillary’s was “I’m with Her.” Huh? It has been recently revealed that “Because it’s Her Turn” was even considered at one time for her slogan. I’m pretty sure that was Bob Dole’s campaign slogan. I gathered she was going to continue the policies of Barrack Obama, even the bad ones like support for TPP (which Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren opposed). But she never articulated a clear vision of what she wanted to do in office, why she was running, or what direction she wanted the country to take. Xtreme White Ice Cream is a clear distinct flavor. Some Sorta Ice Cream is more like “what about desert? Do you want a baked good or maybe some sorta ice cream.” Her message was neither a distinct direction nor a detailed vision for our nation. The majority of her speeches and answers at the final three debates seemed more based on “how could you vote for him?” and not based on why you should vote for her.

“with Judgmentally Questionable Nougat”

I always viewed Hillary Clinton as wildly intelligent, very hard working, and also extremely qualified to be President. I just have never quite understood her judgement. In the 2008 Democratic Primary I voted for Barack Obama. I liked his policies and his vision for the country but the one thing that really steered me towards him and away from Clinton was her vote for the Iraq war. I know that she has said that she was only voting for the authority for the administration to use military means if necessary. But even from my little nook in far away Ohio, I knew that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz were just itching to get into that sun drenched, oil laden haven. Within a few short months following September 11th I could see the writing on the wall and became alarmed that the administration was using the attacks of 2001 to justify a war on Iraq. I could see from their fear based and dubious statements that this was to be their real agenda. Declaring war on a nation which had nothing to do with the tragic events of that September morning is one of, if not the biggest, foreign policy mistakes ever undertaken by the United States of America. Imagine if we had declared war on Korea after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This was just as glaring an error. Yes, they were in the Middle East and yes the country was chock full of Muslims; but that was not justification for a war which allowed Osama Bin Laden to escape justice (for the time being), nor rational when the religions and ethnicities of the Iraqi people were taken into account, or Saddam Hussein’s personal hatred of Al Qaeda and his country’s stance against Islamic terrorism. It was easy to see the disaster awaiting us here at home and in the region of the Middle East if this delicate balance of power was upset. Clinton’s vote for the war was not one of patriotism; it was a sign of bad judgment.

Hillary Clinton was paid nearly 22 million dollars in speaking fees after leaving the office of Secretary of State, for about 200,000 dollars a speech. It was all perfectly legal, and everyone one in Washington does it, but that doesn’t mean they should. The same cronyism that led Dick Cheney from Halliburton to the White House and then led both of them and the rest of us to Iraq is part of the same unholy union of big business and government which infests our democracy and steers its resources towards the wealthiest of our society. Her paid speeches were nothing more or less than the lobbying done by Cheney and countless others. If she was planning (and we know she was) to run for the Presidency then this is a stunning lack of judgment to accept those funds. These paid speeches were advanced Quid Pro Quo for when these organizations and businesses assumed she would be President of the United States. Do you believe Goldman Sachs gave her 200,000 dollars because they were dying to know what she had to say? She could of sat on stage for half an hour lighting her farts and they would of happily paid her 200 grand...perhaps they would of paid her even more:)

Using a private email server as Secretary of State also reflects a serious lack of judgment. Anyone with a job using an email knows that you leave your personal business off your job account and that you never use your personal email for conducting business at work. In most jobs you would be seriously reprimanded or even fired for crossing these lines. I believe she has been unfairly attacked and targeted by many on the right for decades and she probably thought this might keep them from “snooping into her business.” But in a government job (or practically any other) this is not a decision she should have been allowed to make. And what she failed to grasp (and miraculously everyone around her too) was that setting up a private account would draw far more scrutiny than just using the email account the State Department would have surely assigned her.

Huma Abedin might be the best political operative since sliced bread and Hillary might have thought of her as a second daughter, but she had no business being associated with the Clinton campaign in 2016. In 2011, five years before Clinton’s second run at the Presidency, Abedin’s husband Anthony Weiner was discovered to be texting sexually explicit images of himself through his Twitter account. At this point Clinton should have made a few calls and gotten Huma another job. It is not judgmentally sound politics to run for office with someone by your side who reminds the public of a sex scandal (unfortunately her husband already did). Now imagine the optics of seeing Hillary getting off a bus or plane next to not just one person, but now sandwiched between two people who remind the public of sex scandals. She might have loved the young woman and felt sorry for her situation with her husband Anthony, but if Clinton honestly felt running for President was for the common good and for the betterment of our nation, then finding a new job for Huma was a small sacrifice. Abedin, in forgetting that her emails were on a laptop shared with her husband Weiner, was also (through sexual scandal) ultimately responsible for FBI director James Comey’s announcement that they were reopening the investigation into Clinton just weeks before the election in November.

I still believe she could have won the election if she would have chosen a running mate other than Tim Kaine. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or even Sherrod Brown would have brought progressive and younger voters to the voting booths and helped balance her more moderate views. Or she could have chosen Cory Booker, Julian Castro, or Xavier Becerra to expand her base. But she chose a boring white guy who pretty much agreed with all of her moderate policies. Judgment.

I have no idea what Hillary Clinton is like in person but I know her appearing uncomfortable or awkward in the limelight didn’t help (especially when running against a reality television star). I also respect many of her accomplishments and many of the things she did and tried to do with her life. I was deeply moved and impressed by the biographical film that was played of her at the Democratic Convention. I just think, that somehow, she might have gotten lost in that Washington beltway and become separated from the spirit and the democratic vision of her youth that the film portrayed.

There are many adjectives that never were and never will be used to describe candidate and now President Trump: nice, thoughtful, well-read, attentive, qualified. I believe you can apply all of these words to Hillary Clinton. But she was a lousy candidate. Donald Trump, by all evidence, is not even a good or normal person; but his many false promises and the free media coverage made him a winning candidate for the fall of 2016. He sang to the masses the words of promise and fear and words of reaction in a time when many saw the country, and even the world, as lost. Donald might have alluded to the shadowy demons of our nature but Hillary failed to illuminate a path to its angels.

“Choice”, Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x30”