Why Him?
We all live in the third richest county in the country. Ranked first in the best places to live in America. Resources, funds and opportunities are given to us in unlimited amounts. Most of us have a very easy and privileged life and won’t have to say any different in the future. The choices of this election won’t affect us. We will continue having our great and privileged life. The same cannot be said for 320 million of our fellow citizens. The American middle and lower classes are suffering. They haven’t seen significant wage increases in decades. The economy is stagnant. Obama is the only president to not deliver a single year of +3% GDP growth. Obamacare premium rates are increasing across the country at a massive rate, such as states like Arizona who has seen their premiums go up by 116 percent. We are in multiple conflicts in the Middle East, which cost us billions of dollars a year without resolutions and has displaced millions of innocent people. The country spends 113 billion dollars in public expenditure for illegal immigrants yet our veterans can potentially die waiting for treatment due to the incompetency of government run facilities such as the VA (Veteran Affairs). We have lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. Hillary Clinton has been at the forefront of many of these problems. She praised NAFTA, which her husband signed and took millions of our jobs, she voted for the war in Iraq and she continuously supports Obamacare, despite its objective failure as can be seen in increasing costs. Even her husband says it’s “the craziest thing in the world.” On Tuesday, you have a choice, you can vote Clinton, and see what disaster an Obama third-term may bring, or you can vote for a man who understands American prosperity because he’s been building it since 1970.
Many may object to my candidates personal ventures, but I ask you this: Did JFK’s partying and adultery make him any less of a champion for civil rights? Does M.L.K’s adultery and plagiarism make him any less of an American hero? Does Steve Jobs doing LSD and traveling to India for the sole purpose of experimenting with psychedelic drugs make him any less of a genius? The fact is, the presidency is a job, and the only thing that matters is how well you do your job. You don’t select your lawyer or doctor by asking about their personal life, you ask about how well they do their job. When it comes to Trump, he delivers, turning a small real-estate firm in New York to a multinational brand that everyone from New York to New Delhi recognizes. When it comes to Clinton, the only thing she delivers is failure, two senate terms with no significance (besides Iraq and NAFTA) and the only time she got her way while she was Secretary of State was during Libya and the TPP (both of which she admits are failures).
When Obama came into office, he labeled his failed 20th century socialist policies “progressive.” We, the American people, had faith in him. You’ve seen where “progressive” policies get us. On Tuesday, you can give him a third term, or you can make America great again.
Alice Bell • Nov 8, 2016 at 2:38 PM
The fundamental backdrop of this election is that Americans have the right to free speech – no one has exemplified this more than Trump. His rhetoric is buoyed by sexist, racist commentary, and his platform is, in my opinion, little more than that.
The point of the presidency is to accomplish things – to be qualified for the presidency, a candidate needs to have a plan. The issue at hand is not that no one understands the state of the country, but rather that those with solutions have not gotten the power to fix them.
President Obama has accomplished a stunning amount, particularly when attached to the ball-and-chain that this Congress has made themselves. Since his 2008 election, the unemployment has steadily plummeted, reaching 4.9% this month according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The thing most easily forgotten about President Obama is that he was elected during a recession – those low numbers from 2008 and 2009 are leftovers from eight years of George Bush – the one who involved us in the Middle East. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the same idea applies here – unemployment wasn’t fixed instantly.
The reason I support Clinton is because of what Trump will not do. I do not trust him with my rights. I don’t trust that he won’t take away my right to bodily autonomy by repealing Roe v. Wade. I don’t trust that he will protect the rights of other LGBTQ+ individuals, and defend their rights to marriage and adoption. I don’t trust that he will allow freedom of speech and the press to continue unhindered. I don’t trust that he will fight for the poor and marginalized of this country; he is a man who views a million dollars as a small loan, and thus has no way to identify with those living paycheck to paycheck. He has mocked disabled reporters and belittled women, not to mention the “grab her by the p*ssy” tapes and his upcoming trial for sexual assault. You say that the main thing is how qualified one is for the job, but this is not just any job. When voting for a president, we aren’t voting simply for policy – we’re voting for someone to represent Americans and our ideals to the world.
Thalia Alpos • Nov 7, 2016 at 3:16 PM
I urge you not to simply restate soundbites said by Mr. Trump, and do research on these “stimulus packages” and what President Obama has specifically done to the economy, whether he has helped or worsened it. It’s easy to always blame the President, he is a scapegoat to all the problems in our country, simply because he is the face of it.
You did attempt to state Mr. Trump’s policies, unfortunately you said what he says, which is vague. You can say what he will do all day long, but I know what he wants to do, the question is how. He will build a wall on the Mexican-American border. He will get Mexico to pay for it. How will he convince the Mexican government? How will he build over the communities, villages, plots of land that find themselves on the border, half in America and half in Mexico? How will he deport the millions of illegal Mexican immigrants? These are all unanswered question that Mr. Trump refuses to answer. How will he defeat ISIS? How will he help the economy? We don’t know, and I simply do not think the country should blindly put faith in a man that has never given us a straight answer simply because he “speaks his mind”, or “doesn’t have a political career to lose”. Whether or not he admits it, Mr. Trump has a political career. He always badmouths politicians, but fails to recognize that he is one. When you are the Republican nominee for President of the United States, you are a politician. You are involved in politics and government to the fullest extent. His detrimental idea that only he can fix our country is the opposite of the democracy America has worked so hard to maintain. Our founding fathers did not discard the Constitution when they saw its faults. John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison wrote the Federalist Papers to show the faults and work towards fixing the document of our people. We cannot fix problems by starting over and deleting what other presidents have done. We must ammend faulty documents, work to create a country that recognizes problems and fixes them, not fight between each other to do something new. That is exactly what Mr. Trump is proposing: his own form of government where he can do whatever he thinks is right.
There is a possibility that we see Mr. Trump with a big old “WINNER:” before his name on every news channel tomorrow night. I fear his presidency, as he has left us in the dark as to what his ideas for solving problems will be, except for the fact that he will “get rid of” or “tear up” a lot of them. His drastic measures of “my way is the only way” are not acceptable to be the ideals of a president. I do not want to elect an egotistical tyrant. I recognize Secretary Clinton’s faults. But measuring them up to the faults of Mr. Trump and his campaign have allowed me to make my decision as to why I support the Democratic candidate.
Michael Tuvshin • Nov 7, 2016 at 12:36 PM
You’re right . I did very little to state what he will do . I was pressed on words and I thought that I should explain to the people the state of the country we are in but many of us don’t feel the effects. The point I tried to make was that the the policies of the last 8 years economically and foreign policy have not been working. The stimulus packages which account for a lot of our debt did not work and had very little growth, less than any other president. Economist all across the board agree that his tax plan will stimulate a lot of growth. The counter argument is that he will add heavily to our debt but that’s only assuming we don’t have a balanced budget and operate in the wasteful ways we do now. As for foreign policy , Lybia and Iraq have been a disaster . Both have been supported by Hillary but opposed dogmatically by trump. Donald trump wouldn’t have invaded iraq or Lybia as where as when Hillary supported both. This disproves the notion that he’s a trigger happy child that could spark nuclear war. Iran nuclear deal gives too many benefits to Iran and enables them to build a nuclear arsenal. Trump has said that he will tear the deal up and actually make a deal that will have a guarantee that there is no risk and guarantees a step towards WMD free world. He is a radical I agree . But we need change in many ways. The one thing that no other candidate would dare change was to have term limits for vongress . American people agree that congress should spend less time running for reelection and more time solving problems . Donald trump has suggested term limits . Other candidates can never do that because of their political careers . He can muster up strength to do things that no one else can .
Thalia Alpos • Nov 7, 2016 at 12:07 PM
I would like to start off by saying that I completely support anyone’s vote as long as they can back it up with a solid opinion that makes sense to themselves. Do whatever you want when you walk into the voting booth. But do not be a person who ignores true faults. You can tell me you support Trump, but you did not answer the question of “Why Him?”, you simply grasped at the problems our country faces today. “This election will not affect us”? With that logic why do we even care? This election is extremely important. With the death of Justice Scalia, there is a vacant seat in the SCOTUS. A vacant seat that can dictate past and future rulings. With a Trump presidency, a conservative justice will be appointed. Overturning rulings such as Roe v Wade and the legalization of gay marriage will be catastrophic for so many in our community. It may not affect you, Michael, but it will certainly affect me if I ever have to make the decision of what to do with my body. People will still have abortions, allowing them to be done safely is simply the government taking care of their people. Gay marriage should remain legal, as the union of two people who are in love is irrelevant to a person who simply wants to express their beliefs. Again, I have no problem with someone’s beliefs. If you have a different ideology than me, I won’t fight you, we can have a civil debate (which is not what Trump is doing). Spreading hate is very dangerous in a president. Having the youth of America growing up thinking it is okay to publicly express hate for one Rosie O’Donnell, calling women pigs and disgusting, generalizing entire groups of people, and generally spreading hurtful messages will not give them a positive view at the people in our country who do not look like them, which is the majority. You did not mention one policy of Mr. Trump’s, no true way for him to fix this “stagnant” economy that was “caused by Obama”. Trump is all talk, no experience. Hillary knows what goes in the White House. As Trump points out, she has had 30 years of political experience. Say all you want about Bill, but he helped our economy significantly, creating prosperity, which was then combusted by Bush, and Obama has been trying his best to pull us back out.
I respect you for stating your ideas in such a controversial topic. I don’t think you can vote, but it is important that the youth is involved in politics and current events. Thank you for stating your beliefs, I just hope you’ll listen to the beliefs of others.