On Politics
You can skip this one if you want but I’ll try to keep it from getting too ugly.
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I am tired of constant the headlines about the day-to-day of the election and I am sure you are too. We’re constantly being inundated with soundbites and op-eds and rumors and mostly insignificant nonsense. But by the same token I feel compelled to chime in. I’m just frustrated with the country and the media and the way this whole election process is going down.
I’m frustrated that there seems to be so much hate and also an utter lack of understanding across the board. I’m also frustrated that I let it bother me so much, so maybe saying something here will help me feel better about it.
There’s this common refrain I’ve heard over the past few months that supporting Hillary is voting for the lesser of two evils; it literally makes me sick to hear that. Hillary Clinton is far from evil. The idea that she’s evil or untrustworthy or criminal or any of the other things that have been said about her, is a conspiracy that has been spun up by the media (on both the left and the right). Hillary has become the punching bag of both parties but she’s stood her ground through the attacks. When she finally does win the election, she’ll be an incredible president. The hatred is Hillary stems from our unwillingness to look at anything beyond the superficial. Yes, she has made some mistakes, but none of them critical, none of them worthy of the spite she has had to face.
First, why do people dislike her? She’s robotic, she’s a politician, she’s been around for a long time and she’s seen as a part of the establishment. Yeah, sure, but she’s also been an incredibly successful politician and someone who’s respected on both sides of the aisle. She was one of the most liked members of the Senate from 2001–2009 and she got stuff done! Isn’t that what we want from our government? I hear so many complaints about the lack of action by elected officials and an inability to actually get shit done. Who better to Washington moving?
There’s also the infamous email scandal. Yes this was obviously a dumb and deceitful thing for Hillary to do but she has been investigated by Congress and the FBI and has been found innocent of any wrong-doing. In 2007, under president Bush, it was found that the administration had been using a private email server run by the RNC. Two years later is was found that 22 million emails had been deleted by the administration. Was Bush impeached for any of this? Was he contiually berated about it? There were a lot of other things pissing people off about his administration at the time, so his email scandal was mostly ignored. While serving as Secretary of State under Bush, Colin Powell also used a private email server. Again, deceitful and potentially harmful but not criminal.
The other big knock on Hillary is the Benghazi attack. After repeated Congressional investigations it has been shown that Clinton didn’t do anything wrong in the attacks. While she has admitted that as Secretary of State she could have and should have ensured the American Embassy in Benghazi was more secure, that doesn’t put her at fault for not predicting a terrorist attack. The idea that she knew about the coming attack and covered it up via her private email was, once again, proven to be a conspiracy theory. Even the family of the Ambassador who was killed in the attacks has said Hillary wasn’t at fault in his death.
Lastly there’s the issues of a potential conflict of interest between the Clinton foundation and Hillary’s role as Secretary of State. This is the most frustrating to me because it’s a totally baseless attack against a foundation that does an incredible amount of good for the world. Hillary doesn’t personally profit from the foundation and it’s been shown countless times that none of the meetings she had as SoS with any Clinton Foundation donors actually led to any policy decisions she made in office. The foundation does a tremendous amount of good around the world, from stopping the spread of HIV and Malaria, to empowering women in underprivileged countries, combating poverty, to addressing climate change and so much more. Why does a foundation for good fall under so much scrutiny?
From my perspective it just feels like some people can’t stand the thought of a woman president. So, they keep returning to these same baseless attacks while ignoring the blatantly harmful flaws of her opponent. She’s proven herself time and time again to be hard worker and effective policy maker. Remember how bad a state the country was in when President Obama took over? We’ve come along way from the crazy economic cliff the Bush administration had left us on. Hillary will build on that and continue to lead us into the future. She will be even be even better at appealing to both sides of the aisle than Obama.
It’s for all these reasons that I find it so insulting to hear folks call Hillary the lesser of two evils. She’s dedicated the vast majority of her life to making democracy work and for helping less privileged people. There’s nothing evil about helping people. Who has Trump ever helped besides himself? Do you really expect him to start now?
