Preaching From the Choir: Why Hillary Clinton Hits the Right Notes
By Benjamin Haas
Like many Americans who have served in our nation’s armed forces, I am passionate about this year’s presidential election. I know that it is an opportunity for me to express the same freedom I defended in Afghanistan, only now in a voting booth as a civilian.
Interestingly, along with my overseas tours, what best informs my deep and abiding patriotism — and, not incidentally, my avid support of Hillary Clinton as our next Commander in Chief — is the sense of pride I felt while singing on the risers of a military choir before I was ever deployed to Afghanistan.
When I first arrived at West Point in 2005, I learned basic soldiering skills and enrolled in challenging classes. I also joined the academy’s Jewish Chapel Choir. It was that latter training — as a tenor in a cadet ensemble — that gave me my first taste of the values that define the American identity, especially when our choir was invited to sing at a White House Hanukkah celebration.
I was positively thrilled. As a 19-year-old from the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, attending a White House celebration in uniform was the stuff of dreams. When our bus pulled up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I was overcome with equal parts pride and jitters. There in the East Wing, it quickly began to dawn on all of us that, yes, we were actually about to sing for the President of the United States.
But beyond the honor of performing in such an extraordinary setting, I was proudest of our choir for exemplifying the power of diversity. In addition to the many Jewish cadets among us (myself included), there were several Christians in our group, and our conductor — our leader — was Muslim. Yet our differences were not limited to our religious faiths — our choir was also a shining reflection of the American melting pot, as we were comprised of various races, ethnicities, genders and, perhaps, sexual orientations.
But all of us were united by our shared dedication to serving our country. Indeed, divisions that may have existed among other peoples in other settings were simply not relevant. As soldiers and singers, we were all part of the same team effort.
As I write this, one political party in our nation represents this type of inclusiveness, while the other fosters exclusion. Earlier this summer, the Republican Party adopted a platform rooted in homophobia, and its chosen leader, Donald Trump, has continually disparaged minorities — the very same minorities who proudly serve in the military. Months later, Trump remains the tent pole for this dangerous and acrimonious circus, particularly as he embraces the alarming bigotry and xenophobia of the alt-right movement.
In stark contrast, the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton celebrate the exquisiteness of our diversity. Democrats rejoiced last year when the Supreme Court held that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional — a decision that Republican leaders bitterly fought or accepted only grudgingly. More recently, there was Captain Humayun Khan, an American Muslim who was killed serving in Iraq. Hillary Clinton described this fallen hero as “the best of America,” while Donald Trump could only manage to disparage his parents.
The GOP used to be perceived as the party of national security. Under the “leadership” of Donald Trump, however, that commitment has been reduced to rubble. Early in his campaign, Trump could not identify the leaders of the world’s foremost terrorist organizations. He has indicated that he may not defend our NATO allies if attacked — an astonishingly ignorant assertion that is unfathomable to even the most casual of historians. He has also repeatedly insisted that we should steal Iraq’s oil, which would be an egregious violation of international law.
On top of all of this, Trump hides his cluelessness behind a veil of “unpredictability” — an absurd dodge that Slate magazine has now dubbed “the dumbest doctrine in politics.”
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has repeatedly demonstrated a nuanced approach to national security, a carefully crafted policy that embraces Democratic Party principles. She believes that military force should be used only as a last resort, but also understands that it is sometimes appropriate and, in extreme cases, imperative. This deep commitment to America’s safety is complemented by Clinton’s substantive grasp of critical issues, a meticulousness that has often earned her praise as a “policy wonk” — which is precisely the intellectual skill set we should expect of a Commander in Chief.
It has been more than a decade since I first stepped into the ranks of the West Point Jewish Chapel Choir, but all these years later, I can still recall the supreme sense of pride and satisfaction I felt to be among such a diverse and patriotic cross-section of American citizens.
So in November, I will once again sing out loud and sing out strong — only this time, it will be for Hillary Clinton.
Benjamin Haas is a student at Stanford Law School. He graduated from West Point in 2009 and was an intelligence officer in the Army for five years. He was deployed to Afghanistan twice.
