The American people now have a clear choice for their next
president. Do we select someone who is knowledgeable and informed about every issue
or someone who knows nothing about many important domestic and foreign issues?
Do we want someone whose campaign is built around facts and
the issues or someone whose campaign is built around insults and boasts?
Someone whom PolitiFact considered the most truthful of all
the candidates or someone who lies in every speech and even vilely stooped to
telling the odious lie that he knew a child who got autism from a vaccination?
Someone who has remained calm and restrained in the face of
25 years’ worth of false accusations or someone prone to fly off the handle and
make outrageous statements?
Someone who has always stressed inclusiveness and spent
decades working on behalf of minorities or someone who has fomented hate
against immigrants and minorities?
Someone who has admitted when subsequent events or facts
proved her wrong or someone who digs in and refuses to admit he’s been wrong or
even made an inaccurate statement?
Someone who has spent decades working for the rights of
women, or someone who constantly denigrates women and
evaluates them solely on their sexual charms?
Someone who showed her commitment to traditional marriage by
working things out with a philandering husband or someone who twice had public
affairs while still married?
Do we want someone from the upper middle class who
represents the American ideal of meritocracy by working hard and succeeding in
every position she has had or someone who was born into wealth and by some
accounts did worse in his business dealings than he would have passively
investing the hundreds of millions he inherited? Someone who has always been a
success or someone who sent three companies into bankruptcy, making money while
investors lost millions?
Do we want someone whom virtually every foreign leader knows
and respects or someone foreign governments fear as an irrational hothead and
despise because of his insulting statements about Muslims and Hispanics?
As these comparisons of the character and experience of
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump demonstrated, even people who believe that
Hillary Clinton is too left wing or too right wing have plenty of reasons to
vote for her.
Donald Trump is at best a narcissistic blowhard and at worst
a deranged, self-centered lunatic. In either case, he is masterful at public
relations and self-promotion, prone to lying, and inconsistent about his
position on the issues—except for his odious stands on immigrants and his
insistence with every other Republican candidate that we need to lower taxes
even more on the wealthy. That many leaders in the Republican Party are
beginning to embrace him instead of talking about running a third-party candidate
only further solidifies the notion that they believe that the president doesn’t
matter much, as long as he (or she, giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt)
supports tax breaks for the wealthy and hates unions. After all, they have
rallied behind an actor and liar before, although Ronald Reagan had at least
been an ultra rightest for years and also had experience serving as head of a
union and governor of a large state. Republicans who are lining up behind Trump
believe that doing so they have the best chance of keeping control of the House
and Senate and maintaining their dominance of state government. That belief may
prove to be as wacky as Trump’s notion that one could round up 11 million
people and ship them out of the country.
The Republicans share blame with the right wing media for
getting the public used to believing lies and fantastical notions. The mass
media also deserves criticism for creating the grounds for Donald Trump, as
they have steadily turned elections into celebrity contests and reality shows
by their focus on personalities, the race itself and miscues, and their
inability or unwillingness to expose candidates and elected officials who lie
about such matters as tax policy, the effectiveness of government programs,
global warming, abortion, gun safety, unions and foreign policy. The
Republicans also fomented the anger of those hurt worst by their policies and
deflected that anger to minorities and our African-American president. It is
those voters who are flocking to Donald Trump—along with the hardcore nativists
and racists who have always made up about 10-15% of the population. Now the GOP
is stuck with a demagogic, self-centered con man with barely controllable urges
and a strong authoritarian streak.
But making certain that Donald Trump does not seize power is
only the second best reason to vote for Hillary Clinton.
The best reason is that she is a competent and caring
liberal who knows how to get things done. Given a majority in the Senate and
the House—a very possible outcome if we get a large voter turnout in November—I
believe that she will build on Barack Obama’s start in bringing the country
back from the excesses of Reaganism. More about that in a few days.
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