Triangulating Trump and Clinton, Similarities
This is a third in the series of blog posts about our current political candidates, the previous post was about specifically Trump. In this post I will examine the similarities between the two candidates.
Starting off with the obvious, our candidates both seem rather wealthy compared to their counterparts. Trump, obviously moreso, with $4.5 billion net worth and Hillary at $21.5 million, 5 times the average for the presidential candidates who were in this race.
In terms of time in elected office, they are both below the average amount amongst the candidates, with Hillary at 7 years and Trump with a complete lack of experience.
The also both have marital issues, both of which were subject to past scandals.
Politically, Hillary and Donald are both centrists by admission so it is only natural that they do share some viewpoints. The interest for me is their similar methods of leaving the center for the sake of vote gaining.
Regarding health-care, both of the candidates had differing opinions. Hillary was, and still is, critical about the Affordable Care Act, but plans on revising it.
However, she uses the Affordable Care Act as a way to differentiate her from the Republicans by vehemently, and outwardly, supporting it.
Donald Trump was also a supporter of the Affordable Care Act until he started running for the Republican party.
Now he currently lacks any cohesive health-care plan and anything that could be considered a plan might be related to a single-payer system.
When it comes to women’s rights both Hillary and Donald are haunted by previous situations. Hillary’s statements in the past towards her husband’s victims should still haunt her today as they stand in the face of many pro-woman values.
Donald could never have success with the feminist community, due to the allegations by his wife Ivanka, and his treatment of her during their divorce. This sounds very similar to the Clintons’ handling of Bill’s victims.
If we look at where they push fault for almost anything that did go wrong on their watches, it should be noted that they place it on others or the situation. Very rarely do they name themselves as the object of fault in their decision making and held beliefs.
When Hillary changed positions on marriage, she simply stated she evolved and didn’t denounce her previous statements.
When Trump said he wanted to tax the wealthy less, he did so in a way that brought confusion and has made no attempt to rectify it.
The two candidates are also embroiled in their own legal scandals. Hillary Clinton with the email server and Trump with Trump University.
Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is centered around the fact that she stored sensitive and classified information in private emails servers. Recently, the FBI declared that there are no criminal charges to be found.
However, it does demonstrate a level of incompetence or irreverence. To be clear, what she did was wrong, but not criminal.
Trump University is currently undergoing three lawsuits for shady business practices and fraudulent schemes to separate the uninitiated with their money.
Oddly enough they are also both anti-free trade. They have opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and heavily criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement.
They both believe that these agreements hurt the American worker and believe that these trade agreements are hemorrhaging jobs out of America.
Most economists find that the free trade is good for our economy and the world. By imposing these tariffs we are encouraging other countries to do the same.
Their states that they won in are also surprisingly similar, where both of them took the South by storm but lost in the Midwest.
This brings uncertainty to the election because traditionally we can see the separation of states based off of party lines.
References:
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