2016 Postmortem
Showing Original Post only (View all)The question is now: Which is WORSE for America - Hillary or Trump? [View all]
Last edited Sun May 22, 2016, 07:19 PM - Edit history (1)
A quick analysis of some of the problems --
1) They are both shameless liars. Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, five seconds of Internet research will provide endless examples of Hillary and Trump smugly proclaiming "as I've always said" along with the video of them proclaiming the exact opposite stances. Hillary is famous for her lawyer like word parsing (the FBI has apparently NEVER contacted her for an interview, but according to her spokesman that is because they are setting it up through her lawyer who is in daily contact with them), while Trump babbles on in a non-comprehensible fashion with "Twitter wars" his favorite pastime. Result: two narcissistic personalities who will say anything the listener wants to hear, and no clue as to what either will really do.
2) They both have legal problems. Hillary is directly responsible for 38 civil lawsuits against the State Department and is currently the subject of a year long FBI investigation. Trump is being sued for fraud with his "Trump University" project, a history of using bankruptcy to reorganize debt, and has been a part of over fifty suits both as Plaintiff and Defendant. Neither of these individuals are dealing with "nuisance" suits; they all appear to be self inflicted stupidity.
3) Questionable "charitable" issues. The Clinton Foundation took millions of dollars from foreign interests while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State despite having signed an agreement not to do so, with both she and her famous spouse collecting millions in questionable "speaker fees" from organizations with regulation issues. Meanwhile, Trump has his own accounting problems, with "raising money for veterans" just one example of problems with his "invisible money" accounting systems.
4) Purported plans for America. I wish Trump could win this one hands down in the "is he a lunatic?" category. From his plans to extort money from NATO allies to threatening immigrants to Roe v Wade concerns, the words misogynistic xenophobic racist seem appropriate. Unfortunately, Hillary's history of supporting fracking, bad trade policy and tragic foreign policy debacles terrify anyone who looks at past performance as an indicator of future performance, while her cruelty toward children (advocating for rejecting bus loads of South American refugee children, votes on cluster bomb usage and countless dead from her "regime change" adventures) only began with the "Welfare Reform" she supported during her husband's presidency.
5) Family problems. Trump is on his third marriage, and his current wife's naked modeling photos are easily found on the Internet. Hillary is still married to the world's most famous adulterer who is in the history books as being impeached for lying under oath. Since "slut shaming" is considered rude, not many people are talking about either spouse.
6) Popularity problems. In a polarized electorate, both Hillary and Trump fight for "most disliked" with on average two voters actively despising them for every voter who likes or finds them tolerable. Support is voiced as "voting against the other candidate" as opposed to "voting for" a preferred candidate. Clinton fundraising and Clinton Foundation money have assured Hillary of establishment support, but over half of the rank and file Democrats are loudly supporting anybody but her. Meanwhile, establishment Republicans appear to be horrified by their candidate, with some party leaders promising to support the Democratic candidate instead because they find his public persona repugnant.
7) Transparency issues. Trump is publicly a bad candidate, but since he is not beholden to anyone, he says what he thinks. He has criticized the Iraq War and the people who allowed it to occur without consequences. He is a blowhard and an asshole who has lowered the tone of public discourse, and gleefully shattered any pretense that the Republican Party doesn't suck. Unfortunately, Hillary has demonstrated complete contempt for the rule of law, and in paranoid fashion, hid government records (her emails) from the public for over six years/failed to comply with FOIA law. She made agreements with President Obama on how State Department business would be conducted, then broke those agreements while using the family "foundation" to enable back door access to NSA and CIA classified intelligence without reporting the security breeches. She appears to have no understanding of the seriousness consequences to the public perception of government transparency, and has actually rolled her eyes at "email questions". A further concern is that any press identification of inappropriate or criminal behavior by her or her team is automatically derided by her supporters as "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Bullshit" (tm) which actually disables the safeguards of a free press to investigate corruption.
At the end, with the choice between Trump's INEXPERIENCE AND OVERT INCOMPETENCE when it comes to good government versus Hillary's COVERT BAD DECISION MAKING AND LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY CONCERNS, it becomes impossible to decide which will actually be worse for America. Both can lie with varying levels of sincerity, and neither is trustworthy. One will sell out American interests publicly, while the other will do it behind closed doors.
I support Bernie Sanders, but if the choice is between Hillary and Trump, my answer is "NONE OF THE ABOVE".
Edit: Received approval from original poster to use this.