That title is based on (I say based on; it’s a verbatim quote) a section of
graffiti scrawled on a bathroom door I saw at Uni. Needless to say the majority
of this graffiti (of which the above quote was only a small part) were pro-Trump
advocates airing their views – or the odd person whose views never came up
trying to add pointlessly to an already pointless discussion in a pointless way.
I feel like I should offer the negative-five people who read this blog some
context.
“But Hillary Clinton’s a traitor. She let classified emails be mismanaged and
possibly misappropriated to the potential detriment of the USA.”
I’ve heard this argument from some people (some of whom aren’t even US
citizens … I mean why do you care that much? Caring about the outcome of the
election, sure, but …) and it’s ... not completely wrong. There’s a certain
level of validity to say that Hillary Clinton isn’t an ideal candidate for
president on a number of grounds (most of which being related to either her
being slightly shady (some of my sources), or her being quite old (do I need to
source this? I think not.) The thing is, there are equally treacherous things
that GOP senators have done with little or no backlash from the right-wing
keyboard warriors of the interwebs (again, please refer to mah sources).
Actually that statement was stacked, because there are also left-wing keyboard
warriors of the internet that are … let’s be honest … equally against Clinton
being President. Because the vocal ‘but she’s a criminal’ cry comes from people
who have (either knowingly or unknowingly) let white men get away with similarly
devious behaviour. If you’re going to pass judgement on something, do your
fucking research first. Same with voting, but that’s another story.
Letting other white men away with devious activity you hang a white woman out
to dry (or try to) for is just blatantly sexist. There’s not another way I can
put it; and I’m not saying the criticisms are wrong.
Let’s be clear. Clinton isn’t an ideal candidate, but neither is the melting
candle the Republicans appear to have nominated. And the difference in the
geo-political state of the world if one were to be elected as opposed to the
other is enormous. Waxy Trump appears to want to remove the civil liberties of
Muslims, Mexicans and immigrants (I think the word ‘undocumented’ is implied.
But that’s all it is, he’s never actually clarified the wording). So vote for
Clinton, or else Trump will win.
I hear the ghost of a call-out up the back of the imaginary lecture theatre
in my mind. “But I can vote for a third party”. Well, yeah. But then it becomes
pure maths and a massive, massive risk. Allow me to explain.
The Republican party is not divided and will vote for Trump by and large.
Voting for a third party instead of Trump will only decrease the number of
people who vote for Clinton. You might argue that you do *want* Clinton to win,
you just don’t want to vote for her; as in you know in your logical brain she’s
the best option of the two choices that are most likely to become President, but
you personally can’t suspend your beliefs for long enough to vote the way that
will game the system to work best for you. Have you even heard of Jill Stein?
Does she have a campaign? Will she get one? No, no and no. This means she won’t
get many votes. Same with other ones, whose names slip my mind.
Allow me to put this in simple mathematical terms. Take ten people ... put
them in a van and drive them over the border to Mexico. No, I digress, that
was satire. But seriously though, let’s take a ten-person sample, and divide
it up like this; four vote Trump, three vote Clinton and three vote for other
third parties. By splitting the 60% that won’t vote for Trump, you’ve given him
the Presidency. If, however, the third party votes hadn’t been split, it may
well have worked out that Clinton would have the presidency after all. It may
not, I hear you say; and you’d be right. It may not, indeed. But what if
it had, though? So … do whatever you like for whatever reason. But if you
vote Trump as a ‘protest’ or a third party because both Clinton and Trump are
objectionable, and the vote is a close one; then you have nobody to blame but
you – who didn’t do everything you could to stop Trump getting the presidency.
List of things Clinton has done that are suspect:
The Private Email Server controversy; In another investigation it was
learnt emails had been deleted from a server they should never have been on,
while Clinton was Secretary of State, some of which were confidential. The
content of some of these emails is also controversial.
Attackers killed 4 Americans in the Embassy in Benghazi and Clinton is
thought to have inadequately protected them if she knew the attacks were
planned.
Chief of staff negotiated with the government while working for NYU,
after having worked for Clinton. Various other donors and relationships working
to help a donor get a job in Lebanon.
Speeches; Since Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, both
Clintons have made millions of dollars for giving speeches. This is implied to
informally influence donors.
Clinton Foundation: The foundation
is a huge global player with several prominent offshoots. It is implied money
has been misappropriated, or sometimes caused more harm than good.
List of things Trump has done that are suspect
Beauty pageant scandals (1992): Trump tried to get into the business of dealing
with attractive, scantily-clad women; and while trying to set this up, made
passes at a venture partner, among other sexual-harassemnt related incidents.
Housing Discrimination (1973): Trump was sued by the Government because the
government contended that Trump Management had refused to rent or negotiate
rentals ‘because of race and color.’
Mafia Ties: Trump has been linked to the mafia many
times over the years, with varying degrees of closeness. Most recently, he is
thought to have ties to Russian oligarchy and threatened that Russia would hack
the DNC’s emails.
Trump University: In 2005, Trump launched a university that promised to teach
Trump’s real estate secrets, but Trump had little to do with the curriculum. It
was also never really a “university” and couldn’t be called as such because it
had no license.
The Four Bankruptcies: Four times in his career, Trump’s companies have entered
bankruptcy. 1) In the late 1980s, in Atlantic City, Trump used junk bonds to
build Trump Taj Mahal. 2) A year later, another of Trump’s Atlantic City
casinos, the Trump Plaza, went bust after losing more than $550 million. Trump
gave up his stake but otherwise insulated himself personally from losses, and
managed to keep his CEO title, even though he surrendered any salary or role in
day-to-day operations. 3) Trump bounced back over the following decade, but by
2004, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts was $1.8 billion in debt. 4) Five years
later, after the real-estate collapse, Trump Entertainment Resorts once again
went bankrupt.
Alleged Marital Rape: While married to Ivana Trump, Donald Trump became angry at
her—according to a book by Harry Hurt, over a painful scalp-reduction
surgery—and allegedly forcibly had sex with her. This statement was later
retracted by Ivana.
Refusing to Pay Workers and Contractors: Contractors, waiters, dishwashers, and
plumbers who have worked at Trump projects say that his company stiffed them for
work, refusing to pay for services rendered.
Trump’s stated policy (from his website or otherwise); To be fair, Trump’s
stated policy is basically Republican standard, apart from the Wall stuff and
racism.
Against closing the borders entirely. Against accepting Syrian refugees in the United
States.
Repeal Obamacare. Replace it with something
Global warming isn't real, unless it's threatening a Trump property.
"Chop" the national debt using an approach that is still unclear.
Ban abortion. Women won't be criminalized.
Let the states set a minimum wage that's an increase from the current federal minimum
wage.
Political donations are fine when those donations benefit the Trump campaign.
Trump says he's against violating international laws or ordering others to do so, but
wants to change the laws to legalize, at minimum, waterboarding.
Trump's immigration plan was published on his website in July: it opposed the H-1B
program, which allows non-immigrant visas for specialty occupations, arguing
then that it was bad for American workers.
Clinton’s stated policy (from her website or otherwise)
Taking on the threat of climate change and making America the world’s clean energy
superpower
We can—and must—end the epidemic of gun violence
Universal, quality, affordable health care for everyone in America
We need comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans deserve to live their lives free from
discrimination
Hillary will make debt-free college available to everyone and take on student loan debt
Every American should be able to learn the skills they need to compete and succeed.
We should be making it easier to vote, not harder.
America must fully commit to supporting veterans.
Worst thing about the campaign was ugliness. Not the campaigning just his
face. But seriously, the fact that Donald Trump is Donald Trump and seems to
have no filter and no knowledge of the implications of what he’s saying affect
the general public, as well as being very hard and costly to actually implement.
This article doesn’t even include threatening to have Hillary Clinton killed, or
the lack of sportsmanship by whinging that the election is fixed. Neither does
it include quotes from Trump; “If she wasn’t my daughter, maybe I’d be dating
her,” or Clinton; “Who is going to find out? These women are trash. Nobody’s
going to believe them,” (both among others). It also doesn’t include hypocrisy
within the Republican party regarding choosing a new Supreme Court Justice,
which is the counter I’d use for ‘the Democrats are hypocritical’ arguments. But
the main problem with Trump is … Trump, this is basically the only ground he has
over Clinton. Although it does seem to account for a lot of ground. If Clinton
were running against almost any other Republican, I suspect she would be having
to actually campaign in order to lead the polls. As it stands, the grandmother
from Little Red Riding Hood is campaigning against the naked mole rat from Kim
Possible. At least the naked mole rat in Kim Possible was funny. The system is
corrupt and neither choice is absolutely perfect, but the choices are never
absolutely perfect and all politicians are corrupt. That's what politics is,
using leverage to get what you want. Political apathy will not help here.
Neither will moral absolutism. However, this is America we’re dealing with and
to be honest, I’m not even sure it matters who wins. There’ll probably be riots
either way because of the angry white people. At least if Trump wins there would
be a stopgap before the hatred begins. It may well be that the hatred and anger
bubbles over immediately, should he lose.
To get maximum value out of this article you really will have to read all of
my sources. That was a fun time.