Saul,
Once again, I appreciate your perspective and you’ve given me a lot to think about. I don’t disagree that the press will likely be infringed upon by Trump, but I think you’re being too generous to Clinton to say she has “exaggerated parts of her record” and “kept the press at arm’s length” and, as a result, holding the two candidates to different standards.
Donald Trump does not currently have political power. He has influence. There is a difference. We are, unfortunately, left to our imaginations to project what Donald Trump would do if in office. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, retains her past political power with access to high-ranking officials in government. Clinton’s refusal to address the press for the full year of her campaign until very recently is, as a result, very serious to me. She also has a history of denying and inaccurately responding to Freedom of Information FOIA Requests.
When we talk about access to the press, we are talking about transparency, not only the rights of journalists, but the rights of citizens to know what their government is up to (as civilians pay the cost of governmental excursions with their blood in war and with their labor).
The very fact that Clinton attempted to avoid transparency by using a private server for communication while in the State Department is a violation of transparency.
Further — as far as her “exaggerating parts of her record,” that is being very generous. She has lied about numerous important details — like landing in Bosnia under sniper fire, not deleting emails, not exposing classified information, not knowing what “wipe a server” means (if this is at all true and not, in fact, perjury under oath, her lawyers did a reprehensible job informing her of the details of the investigation), not knowing that the “c” meant classified, “all of her grandparents immigrated to America” (nope)… these are pretty big lies directly related to her political power and there are many, many more.
As for bullying, you might remember Clinton bullying Terry Gross over what I think were fair questions about her ‘evolution’ on marriage equality or barking at a Greenpeace reporter when asked about her support for fracking.
The very fact that her campaign and supporters are comfortable claiming she does not address the press because of their vilification of her in the past is bullying that puts all media in the same “basket of deplorables”as FOX News. The denouncing of her scandals as “right wing conspiracy theories,” many of which, no doubt, are also has a dangerous result of bullying, in which, from my personal experience, any critic of Clinton is now put in the same bucket with Alex Jones.
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I also don’t agree that Trump’s financial corruption exceeds what we know of The Clinton Foundation as there are numerous ties to arms deals and foreign governments she worked with in the State Department at the time of their donations that, at the very least, substantiate cause for concern.
The issue with Clinton’s ties that throws them over the top for me is that they existed while she had political power as a public servant.
In another example, the triangulation between The Clinton Foundation, the State Department and her family’s (brother’s) personal profit that resulted from the destabilization of Haiti she had part in while in the State Department are also concerning.
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I would certainly not change my behavior if Donald Trump were named President. One of the tenets of journalism used to be the willingness to be jailed for doing the job, for protecting sources, etc. That is the responsibility that accompanies the only Constitutionally protected field in America. Through self-censorship, we will do to ourselves what we fear from Trump.
Further, the free press is essential, but it is certainly not the only factor in voting. Even if Donald Trump’s online bullying is equatable to denying access to the press, or even if it supersedes it from your perspective, Clinton’s public record holds many blemishes that I consider to outweigh the good she has done in her career.
This is no advocacy for Donald Trump, whom I think would be a disastrous leader. It is also no case for Hillary Clinton, whom I also think would be a disastrous leader, albeit the kind of disaster we are familiar and comfortable with.
