New York Times best selling author Michael Levin runs BusinessGhost.com, a ghostwriting firm.

You might have seen Elizabeth Warren’s new MoveOn video bashing Donald Trump—the latest volley in her attack on Trump’s tax ethics, featuring Warren’s narration, dramatic pull quotes and numerous shots of workers and families. Imagine my surprise when a friend texted to inform me that one of the families in that video was mine.

There we are, plain as day, for a couple of seconds: my little daughter, my wife and I. First, I’m helping my youngest daughter put on her bike helmet and ride her tricycle on our cul-de-sac. Cut to a shot of my wife and me standing outside our home, eyes right, presumably pondering the American dream. “Programmers, and engineers, and small business owners—they pay their fair share to support courageous first responders,” Warren’s voice intones over the soft yet ominous mood music playing in the background.


The effect was touching, I’ll admit. But here’s the exquisite irony: I voted for Donald Trump.

Frankly, the whole thing is pretty amusing. Of all the footage on the Internet that MoveOn could have used without permission, they picked a Trump supporter and his wife? I can guess why: I’m white and my wife is Chinese, so I suppose we symbolize the progressive ethos of decent taxpayers whose marriage answers the question, “why can’t we all just get along?” Actually, we do get along; we get along with our neighbors, too. And we pay our taxes. But I still voted for Trump.

So, where’d MoveOn get the footage? This is where it gets even more bizarre. Al Jazeera, the Middle-East based news network, wanted to do a story on “the American dream” to illustrate for its viewers at home what a real American family looked like. A friend of an Al Jazeera producer thought of my family, and the network asked us to participate. We figured, what the heck. So a film crew came out one afternoon and shot footage of us being a typical mixed-race suburban American family, watching our daughter bike, admiring our driveway, that kind of stuff. Warren’s producers maybe searched YouTube for “American dream,” where they came across our segment. They didn’t try to be sly about it, either. If you look closely in the lower left-hand corner of our 3.2 seconds of Internet fame, you will see the Al Jazeera symbol, a small conglomeration of Arabic letters.

Do you think it would it have affected their decision to use us in an anti-Trump video if they had known that I cast my primary ballot for Trump, and brought the same daughter in the video—and her three siblings—to watch me vote?

Do you think they would have changed their mind had they noticed the car? If you look over the shoulder of my then five-year-old daughter in the video, you’ll see my Mercedes parked in our driveway. (That was before I had traded that in for a Prius.)

I’m really not sure if the Warren and MoveOn people really thought this choice all the way through.

Why did I vote for Trump? I guess I’m just an angry white working-class male, despite the lovely marriage, family, cul-de-sac and Mercedes you see in the video. Obviously, the truth is more complicated: As a longtime Republican, I was utterly unimpressed with the clown car of candidates that wanted my vote this year—Trump included. I’m certainly no fan of Trump’s racism toward Muslims or Mexicans (and yes, it is racism). I don’t want a wall with Mexico, beautiful or otherwise, and I don’t want to ban Muslims from entering the country. But I did think that we need a strong negotiator to work on an international scale. I like the Nixonian unpredictability that Trump brings to the table. Despite the bluster, to me, he seemed the least worst candidate.

On the left, the author and his daughter. On the right, the author and his wife. | MoveOn.org

Would I vote for Trump again in the general? Quite frankly, I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to want to grow up. Right now, I’m sitting on my hands, hoping that someone like Mitt Romney will jump in as a third-party candidate, siphon off enough delegates from both sides to throw the thing to the House of Representatives, and once there, ride the Twelfth Amendment all the way to the Oval Office. At least Mitt Romney, a moderate Republican, has demonstrated leadership. Whatever happens, I won’t be rallying behind Hillary Clinton. Every time I see a crowd behind her and the sign that says “fighting for us,” I don't see any angry middle-aged males like me. Maybe now that Bernie is “quitting,” he’ll release his stranglehold on my demographic.

It’s not that I don’t like Democrats. I admire Elizabeth Warren. I read her memoir and share her outrage toward the banks and the bankruptcy code, which has turned millions of hardworking, decent Americans into economic chattel. I admire her daring. I even like her gutsy, self-appointed role as Democratic Trump basher-in-chief. I actually think that she would be a pretty good president; and if she were running, she would have my vote.

All I ask, Senator Warren and MoveOn, is that the next time you want to appropriate the images of my daughter, my wife and myself, especially considering that I did vote for the very candidate you so gleefully trash in the video, you come and ask me first.