Opinion: The Case for Hillary Clinton

This election year has been a crazy one by any standards. When Donald Trump emerged as the Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, it was evident that this election would be crucial to America’s future. Whether it be pulling America out of their $19.4 trillion of debt, dealing with the spread of ISIS, or determining the next set of Supreme Court justices, the next President will be tasked with many crucial actions. On November 8, when Americans across the country head to the polls, they will face their own difficult task — to determine who they deem best fit to lead the nation for the next four years. With the candidates available for the general election, I believe that Hillary Clinton is the best choice for this country. She is not an ideal candidate by most standards, but in my view, she gives the nation the best chance of success over the next four years.  

First, let’s examine one of her strongest points: she’s not Donald Trump. Whether you are a Trump supporter or not, you cannot deny that he says outrageous things and occasionally does things detrimental to his campaign’s success. If I wanted to chronicle everything outlandish that Trump has said, even within the last year, it could fill out multiple pages. Instead, let’s compare him to Hillary Clinton on some of these issues.

• Hillary Clinton has never bragged about sexually assaulting women.
• Hillary Clinton has never called a Hispanic Miss USA contestant ‘Ms. Piggy’ and ‘Ms. Housekeeping’.
• Hillary Clinton has never alleged that vaccines cause autism.
• Hillary Clinton has never claimed that Global Warming is a myth made by the Chinese government.
• Hillary Clinton has never claimed that Mexican immigrants coming into this country are rapists.
• Hillary Clinton has never advocated for a blanket ban on Muslims from entering the country.
• Hillary Clinton has never advocated for the United States to expand its stock of nuclear weapons.

Donald Trump is sexist, plain and simple. Trump seemingly judges women based on their looks, rather than the content of the character, as he has proved time and time again. When he claimed at the third debate on Oct. 19 that, “no one has more respect for women than me,” debate moderator Chris Wallace had to scold the audience for laughing at the incredulity of the statement. The reason for that reaction from the audience is that Trump has a well-documented history of not showing any respect for women. A taped conversation between him and Billy Bush showed him bragging about giving women unwanted sexual attention and getting away with it. When multiple women came forward with accusations of sexual assault after the tape was released, Trump spoke of one accuser, Jessica Leeds, saying, “Believe me, she would not be my first choice.”  In 1991, in an interview with Esquire, Trump said, “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of (expletive).” In August, after feuding with debate moderator Megyn Kelly, Trump said that she had, “blood coming out of her wherever.” In 2012, he spoke about Huffington Post co-founder Ariana Huffington, saying that she is “unattractive both inside and out.” When he spoke about fellow Republican candidate Carly Fiorina, he said, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next President?” This is by no means an exhaustive list of Trump’s comments and feelings about women, and that in of itself is disturbing.

The unfavorability ratings of Clinton and Trump have many voters looking elsewhere, and some have gravitated toward the Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson or the Green Party nominee Jill Stein. First, there is Gary Johnson, whose most famous moments on the campaign trail include not being able to identify the center of the Syrian refugee crisis of Aleppo and also being unable to name one foreign leader that he respects. On a policy level, though, Johnson’s policies are not particularly desirable. Johnson supports Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that enables corporations to load up PACs and effectively buy politicians. Johnson also supports fracking, the TPP, thinks the minimum wage is a non-issue, and believes that the government should not intervene in any way to address global warming. Moreover, Johnson’s policies of governmental inaction and free market principles may be desirable, but they can hurt overall health, as Johnson believes there should be no restrictions on where people can smoke, and that vaccines should not be required. On the topic of vaccines, let’s move to Jill Stein. Stein has not flat-out denied the science of vaccination, but has said that there are real concerns about vaccines, when scientific evidence would indicate otherwise. It is even debatable whether Stein knows her own position on some issues. When Britain voted to leave the EU, Stein released a statement calling the move a ‘victory’, but later amended her statement to say that she supported the UK Green Party that supported staying in the EU. Both candidates seem to have unclear policies, relying on the main candidate’s unfavorability to court voters, and some of their policies that are actually clear are very concerning.

Next, it is most certainly true that Hillary Clinton has extremely significant issues with her own campaign that cannot be ignored. The most significant of which is of course her e-mail scandal. The individual tenets of the scandal are well-known, but it does bear repeating that Clinton used a private server to access her e-mail instead of state department email servers, sending 113 emails with classified information, 65 with secret information, and 22 with top secret emails. The use of a private server created the possibility that the information could have been obtained by hackers, compromising important governmental information. Although it is possible that nothing came of it, Clinton displayed a blatant lack of accountability for national security in her handling of her e-mails. Not only that, but when it came to turn over her e-mails, a figure amounting to around 30,000 were deleted under the explanation that they were ‘personal’. Whether they were actually personal or not is impossible to know, but it certainly is not a good look. Moreover, DNC e-mails obtained by WikiLeaks showed that the Clinton campaign actively worked with the DNC to portray Clinton in a favorable light over her opponent in Bernie Sanders, and effectively to do all they could to guarantee a Clinton win. Additionally, Clinton has proved to have a hawkish foreign policy platform over the years, and has taken war perhaps too lightly. In 2002, Clinton famously voted for the Iraq War, and now she is advocating for no-fly zones in Syria, which could lead to conflict with Russia, potentially escalating all the way to war. Frankly, having a no-fly zone is such a poor idea that Clinton has drawn criticism from Bernie Sanders to Barack Obama to Donald Trump on this issue. WikiLeaks recently uncovered a speech Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs in 2013, where she said, “To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk — you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.” Despite this, Clinton continues to advocate for something that could lead to a disastrous war with Russia, which is very concerning. All these issues are more than valid reasons to be wary of Clinton being President, and I agree. Frankly, any of those are difficult, if not impossible, to defend. However, even in light of her past transgressions, I still think she is the best option in this election.

It’s important to address one of the largest criticisms of Clinton — that she’s a flip-flopper. This is a fair criticism on many counts. In 2002, and again in 2004, Clinton spoke out against gay marriage, before she supported it in 2013. She supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership as Secretary of State, calling it the “gold standard of trade deals,” but now opposes it. In 2004, she claimed she was for NAFTA, in 2008, that she was against it. In 2010, she gave support for the Keystone XL Pipeline, but later reversed her position to oppose it. In all cases, Clinton has changed her view, no doubt about it. However, for people who dislike this flip-flopping and turn to Trump, because he appears to be set in his positions, good or bad, they are supporting an even larger flip-flopper than Clinton.

Looking at Trump’s views over the past few years, with a focus on when Trump started his campaign in August 2015, reveals a list of flip-flops longer than that of Clinton’s.

• In terms of illegal immigration, one of Trump’s campaign promises was to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. In August 2015, he said that Mexico would pay for it, and that all illegal immigrants who were criminals would be deported. On September 6, when asked about paths to citizenship, Trump said that he wouldn’t rule anything out. On October 22, he said that the US would pay for the wall, but Mexico would reimburse the cost at a later date.
• In December, Trump called for a complete ban on Muslims from entering the United States. In May, speaking about the ban, Trump claimed it was only a suggestion. When asked about Muslims entering the US from a country such as Scotland, Trump said that he would have no problem with that. He emphasized that the ban was about, “people coming in from the terror countries.” In August, he proposed an ideological test, saying, “In addition to screening out all members or sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes toward our country or its principles ― or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.” “The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world,” Trump said during the second Presidential debate, without actually saying whether or not the ban on travel still stands. “It’s called extreme vetting.”
• Trump famously questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States for years, even after Obama released his birth certificate in 2011. In September, Trump said he would answer the question at the right time, later that month saying that the President had been born in the United States, against his earlier statements.
• On the minimum wage, Trump has touted a large variety of changing views. In May, Trump said that wages should be grown through overall economic growth. Later that month, Trump said, “I’m going to bring companies back into this country, and they’re going to make a lot more than the $15 even.” Later on the same day, Trump said that states should decide, not the national government. In June, Trump proposed raising the minimum wage, but leaving it to the states, saying, “the minimum wage has to go up. People are — at least $10, but it has to go up. But I think that states — federal — I think that states should really call the shots.”

Trump has broken two very important traditions- releasing his taxes and accepting the results of the election. Dating back to Richard Nixon, all Republican Presidential nominees except for Gerald Ford have released their tax returns, and on the Democratic side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton has released her tax returns going back to 2000. Trump has used various excuses to get around releasing his taxes, with one main excuse being that he is in the process of being audited by the IRS. After Warren Buffett released his tax returns while being audited, and IRS commissioner John Koskinen spoke to the House Judiciary Committee, saying that there is no restriction on releasing taxes while under audit, it’s clear that there is an ulterior motive for Trump to not release his tax information. There are multitudes of theories about why Trump refuses to release his taxes, such as exploiting loopholes in tax codes, his businesses failing, or that he has ties with foreign governments. At this stage, there’s no way to know what is true, but he did admit during the second Presidential debate that the $916 million loss he reported in 1995 allowed him to get around paying income taxes for years to follow. Trump’s refusal to release his taxes shows that he is willing to hide things from the American public, and that is a reason for concern. Next, Trump has refused to accept the result of the elections — if Clinton wins. Trump was asked a question on this topic during the third debate, and debate moderator Chris Wallace pointed out that accepting the results of the election is one of the hallmarks of American democracy, with the peaceful transition of power from one President to another. In light of that, Trump refused to say that he would accept the results for sure, claiming that he would look at information when he gets it. Trump has backpedaled on this stance in the following weeks, but the refusal is still significant. To do so would be to discredit the whole democratic process, and creates an instability in the whole system. To suggest that the election is rigged is quite a bold claim, and it hurts the Trump campaign’s credibility.

With all this in mind, I stand by my opinion that Hillary Clinton is the best option for the nation over the next four years. Donald Trump’s dangerous rhetoric should not divide us. Whether it be sexism, racism, or downright bad policy, a Trump-led America would offer a very grim future. In my view, any person who brags about sexual assault, that thinks that global warming is a Chinese myth, that advocates for blanket bans on persons of a certain religion from entering the country and that believes that vaccines cause autism should not be in the White House. In terms of policy, yes, there are aspects to Clinton’s campaign that may draw pause, especially if you are more moderate, or even conservative. She is no perfect politician, and she should be approached with some form of skepticism. With all that in mind, she’s the best that we’ve got. To elect Donald Trump would be a large mistake in my opinion. There’s no clue as to what he would do over the next four years, and based on his rhetoric, I can’t help but fear that he will make the nation take a step back in its progress, economically and socially. This November 8, as voters head to the booths, I hope they will vote for Hillary Clinton, for the sake of the country’s future.