Trump and Clinton: Pair of Liars
We are heading into a Presidential election in which the two main party candidates have some of the highest unfavorability ratings in history. More people dislike Trump and Hillary than actively support them, and a plurality of the country taken as a whole perceive them to be untrustworthy. Yet in our two party dominated political system and the deep, seemingly irreconcilable differences between the left and the right, people will vote for “their” candidate because the prospect of allowing a Republican or Democrat in the Whitehouse seems just too dangerous to allow.
Conservatives think Hillary will destroy the military, pursue socialist policies and progressive cultural agendas at the expense of whatever economic opportunity and social stability still remains in the country. Progressives think that if Trump wins he will wage a fiercer “war on women”, cut entitlements, and pursue racist policies against immigrants, Muslims and other minorities.
Such fears are ironic given Trump’s pledge not to cut Medicare and Social Security or Hillary’s rather hawkish foreign policy positions and Bill Clinton style centrism on the Economy. In some ways, Trump has taken up traditional democrat causes like opposition to free trade and protection of the middle class from competition by foreign labor. Hillary for her part has received support from neoconservatives and appears very willing to engage in more military adventurism around the world. In many ways then, each candidate bleeds over in terms of their political ideas into each other’s supposedly standard partisan talking points.
Perhaps the reason the two candidates do not conform to traditional partisan expectations is because they are both expert opportunists who will do and say anything in order to gain and maintain power. They have both lied and conned their way into positions of wealth and influence, often stepping over anyone that dares stand in their path to personal glory.
Trump has used his political connections in the past to obtain favorable terms for his development projects and he has even gone after an old lady, Vera Coking who refused to sell him her house for one of his doomed casino projects. Trump has also screwed over investors, subcontractors and the everyday workers he claims to fight for, by declaring bankruptcy multiple times in order to avoid paying the massive levels of debts he took on in his many failed ventures. His Trump University scheme used false advertisements and aggressive up-selling techniques to get potential students to spend up to 35,000 on a real estate investing program. He had supposedly “hand-picked” the experts that would teach the course but it has now been revealed that many had little if any knowledge of actual real estate investing. Instead of simply refunding the money of the former students, Trump has allowed the situation to escalate into a class action lawsuit for fraud and negligent misrepresentation that he may have to be dealing with as President of the United States. He is also facing suits from the New York Attorney General for fraudulently using the term “University” when what was being sold were glorified seminars.
Clinton on the other hand has a shady past extending back to when her husband was Governor of Arkansas. She has been investigated for improper trading in cattle futures, and both her and Bill were investigated for their role in the Whitewater real estate scandal. During their time in the Whitehouse, the Clintons were accused of improperly firing Whitehouse travel office staff, covering up Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs, providing donors with nights in the Lincoln bedroom, etc. While it is true that none of these allegations were proven, they cast enough of a shadow over the pair that it becomes very easy to see both of them as putting personal ambition over principles and the good of the nation.
More recently, Hillary has faced her own specific set of problems, including an FBI and Inspector General investigation into her use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State. Regardless of the outcome of these investigations, it is clear that the only reason someone would do something like that given the secure nature of government communication systems, is to conceal communications from public scrutiny. She has claimed repeatedly that no classified data was passed intentionally through her private email server, yet investigations have already found this not to be true. Even if she was careful to try and keep classified information off her server, the mere fact of using a private email system for official communications would logically run the risk of some classified information getting through. That is why such practices are not allowed when it comes to high ranking government positions. At the very least it shows what sort of disregard Hillary Clinton has for the normal rules and how her priority seems to be herself rather than the interests of the American people.
Beyond issues of personal moral failures and a propensity for lying, both Trump and Clinton seem to be wholly unsuited for the office they are seeking in terms of wisdom, temperament and ability to unify. As mentioned, both candidates are highly unpopular, and the election of either one would likely lead to a further divide between Democrats and Republicans in the country. They are also quite lacking when it comes to responsible foreign policy ideas. Clinton presided over and advocated for the intervention in Libya that led to a rise in radical Islamic groups as well as a dangerously destabilized situation that can be directly tied to the deaths of several Americans in Benghazi, regardless of whether or not a stand down order was given from on high. Clinton also voted in favor of the Iraq war, and we all know how disastrous that was. Trump claims he was against the war in Iraq and is generally perceived to be less interventionist than Clinton, yet he criticized Obama for not doing more in Syria and has pledged to intervene militarily in the region to stop ISIS. Now that may indeed be a necessary course of action, but Trump has also remarked that we should kill the families of terrorists, a tactic that would be both morally repugnant and a war crime under international law. He talks about making the military “great again”, yet when pressed seems to know little if anything about things like our current nuclear posture.
On domestic policy, things are not much better. Clinton constantly talks about income inequality, yet the Clinton Global Initiative has taken in millions from crony corporate stooges and those who would otherwise be classified as the 1%, often in exchange for explicit political favors. She offers no concrete solutions to our economic woes except for putting her husband in charge of "fixing the economy. That is ironic given that he was instrumental along with Larry Summers, in repealing Glass-Steagall and related reforms that led directly to two asset bubbles, “too big to fail”, and a Wall Street with far too much influence in the economy. She also talks about making community college free for everyone in the country, but fails to provide good evidence on how that will be paid. She has also said nothing about the student loan scam which allows colleges around the country to raise tuition without regard to demand because they know any student that wants to will qualify for a loan. Thus instead of bringing the cost of college down, Clinton’s policies will like Obamacare, make them go up further. The reality is that with Clinton we can expect more of the same crony capitalism that is wrecking the economy and giving the free market a bad name.
Trump peddles just as much vague nonsense as Clinton, constantly talking about how he will negotiate better “deals” for the US on things like trade with China, yet completely missing the point that in a free-market system, the economy is composed of millions of exchanges over a period of time. Even if he does get the US a better trade deal here and there or reigns in some of the excesses of the global trade system, he has said nothing about how to stimulate job growth and small business creation other than some lip service to lower taxes and protectionism. If we consider his past as a mega rich mogul who has done whatever it took to increase his bottom line, including higher thousands of the illegal workers he so loves to criticize, then the idea that he is going to fight for small business or the common worker is ridiculous. In any case, Trump has said virtually nothing about other domestic issues such as education, the war on drugs, or healthcare, other than of course saying Obamacare was a disaster, something most of the country already knows. In short Trump also fails to deliver on any meaningful policy to fix the countries domestic problems, choosing instead to focus on how amazing he is and how we should just trust him because he is so rich and successful.
The American voter has been caught in the cycle of voting for the lesser evil now for several decades, but in this election cycle things have gotten worse. The lesser of two evils between a self-serving ego maniacal blowhard and a lying, scheming corrupt arrogant career politician is not in any way clear. People may vote along party lines to keep the other party’s candidate out of office, but that will not save the nation or our children’s future. We face a time of great challenges, both at home and abroad and we need to be looking for the best to lead us, not the worse to run us further into the ground. Neither Trump nor Clinton have what it takes to be the President of the United States, either in terms of a successful track record, character, temperament, or even basic common sense.
Yet staying home does not need to be the only option, Gary Johnson and William Weld, two former governors with practical experience and concrete policy proposals are running on the Libertarian ticket. You do not need to agree with everything they stand for, and maybe you think libertarianism in general is too ideological. Yet these two men have more capability than either major candidate combined and they were broadly unifying when serving as governors of their respective states. They are also lovers of liberty, of limited government, and of the generally free exchange of goods and services. For liberals there is a commitment to civil rights for all Americans, an opposition to the drug war, and a skepticism of mass surveillance and the military industrial complex. For conservatives Johnson and Weld exemplify fiscal conservatism, increased economic growth and a disdain for corporate welfare and other distorting government handouts.
While they have a very small chance of actually making it to the Whitehouse, a vote of at least 15% and a handful of states, could deny either Trump or Clinton what they need in terms of electoral college votes to secure the Presidency. Beyond that, they could finally create a permanent space for third party or independent voices in major political campaigns. What America needs is more ideas and more diversity in the public sphere, and even if you are a committed democrat or republican, your party could be challenged positively by facing policies that transcend the traditional left/right divide.
Whatever you choose to do, do not simply vote for Hillary or Trump because of party loyalty, if you do, your party might gain a temporary victory but the nation will suffer a permanent blow to its liberty and prosperity.
