Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
I’m with #WomenWhoVoteTrump, Otherwise I’m Stuck with Clinton
Elections are choices, and next month, the American people will effectively choose one of two people to become America’s next president, either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
The most recent polls suggest that many Americans are rethinking whether they should support Trump over Clinton because of his crude 2005 interview with Billy Bush, mitigated by his debate performance, but then tested again with allegations of unwanted groping and kissing by assorted women.
We don’t know if the allegations are true — Trump has denied them. But the video is real. And I certainly found Trump’s remarks reprehensible. It’s repulsive to hear a grown man treat women as objects and so cavalierly discuss pursuing women as if they were just points on an ego scoreboard. But it’s also not a surprise.
I grew up with New York tabloids talking about Trump, and paid attention during the primaries — seriously, who can be shocked that in a private setting he talked this way?
But this election, to an even greater degree than most, is not about electing a candidate I like, but one that I dislike less, who will do a less-bad job as president.
There certainly are things Trump could do to lose my support. If the media, for instance, unearthed a recent speech in which Trump said that the public positions on key policy issues are different than his real private views, I’d be rethinking my support.
But that’s not what Trump did, it’s Clinton who proudly admitted to being two-faced on some policy issues.
If the media found an interview with him cheerleading wide open borders, gutting gun rights, or creating a single-payer health care system, I’d have a problem.
If he thought that the president should be able to rewrite major laws through executive orders and the labyrinth of agencies ceaselessly generating regulations that would have me worried.
If he was promising to continue the failed economic policies that have enriched the politically-connected in Washington while destroying opportunity for those in inner cities and Middle America, and making everyday life ever more expensive, that would give me pause.
But those aren’t Trump’s positions — they are Clinton’s.
If Trump said that he would only select judges who thought their job was to advance a liberal political agenda rather than defending the Constitution and leave legislating to the people and their elected representatives, I would hesitate. But that’s not what he has promised; it’s what Clinton promises.
I might decide that Trump wasn’t fit for office if the media uncovered documents that showed that Trump hadn’t actually made his money building his businesses, but rather had amassed millions by using a government position to wring hefty payments for speeches and for his foundation from bankers and foreign governments.
But it wasn’t Trump who built a fortune exploiting government power — that was Clinton and her family.
I might be concerned if we knew that once Trump was in office, the deep institutional self-serving corruption which has corroded the integrity of the IRS, the VA, apparently the State Department, and now the FBI, would continue. Because countries survive bad leaders, but once their institutions become deeply corrupt, restoring integrity and trust is incredibly difficult.
But Trump is the broom to clean out the Augean stables that is Washington — it’s Clinton who is the embodiment of this cozy, unscrupulous dishonesty.
I’d be worried if I thought that in a Trump presidency the media would downplay all scandals and evidence of corruption and abuse of power.
But we know that the media will be the most attentive watch dog if Trump is president, followed by many in the GOP themselves, ready to pounce on anything that would be remotely out of bounds, while Clinton will enjoy the same sycophantic treatment that she always enjoyed: Excuses of misplaced evidence are accepted, repeated claims of not remembering when deposed are not a matter of concern, and complaints of corruption and wrongdoing poo-pooed as mindless conspiracy theories or dismissed as old news.
New Clinton email describes @maggieNYT as a “friendly journalist” who has “teed up” stories and “never disappointed” https://t.co/HL67S6vjKW
— The Intercept (@theintercept) October 9, 2016
I’d be appalled if Trump truly disrespected women: If I learned he was complacent about practices that would put the nation’s — and women’s — security at risk, or if I saw him asking women on his staff to do illegal things, like destroying evidence, to protect his sorry self.
Or if I saw him lying to women across the country that they could keep their healthcare and their doctors and their costs would go down, or hear him call large numbers of women “deplorable” and “irredeemable,” or touting that he had hired women because they were women, not because they were individuals who were good at what they do.
But Trump doesn’t disrespect the women in his life, his business, on the campaign trail, or in this nation; it is Hillary who jeopardizes us, lies to us, and disrespects us, and who is the worse role model for my children.
Yes, just about everyone has said that this is an election of imperfect choices. That’s true. Yet for me, it’s still an easy choice to make.
Voting for Trump does not mean condoning his lewd comments or behavior, it simply means faced with two choices, one is clearly better than the other.
When it comes to rebuilding the economy so that it works for American families, having a court that adheres to the Constitution and respects the will of the people, and creating a government that is accountable to the people and not corrupted by its service of the politically-connected, Trump is far superior to Hillary on just about every measure.
Cross-posted at The Hill.
Published in General
Trump may have lefty instincts, but he is not a Leftist ideologue, nor does he have a senior management group of Leftist ideologues. He may not intend any counterinsurgency against the Leftist Executive Branch, but he will at least replace top management. Even if some of his picks lean left, this will at least slow down the race to Leftist Utopia.
I do not see that Trump will corrupt the GOP with Leftism. GOP elected officials have been trending more rightward as a result of TEA Party activism. Both Trump and TEA Party tapped restlessness in America for a return to American values, justice and security.
And besides, I care a lot more about America than I do about either the GOP or the conservative movement.
We could do with less of this.
Might I suggest that you are taking my comments way too seriously?
p.s. I’ll pass your love on to HH.
He is not a leftist ideologue true. He may even slow down the advance of leftism but it will come on super charged and ready to go in 2020. What advantage is to us to elect a man so unworthy to the office to stave off defeat for four measly years? Super cracker jack managers in the Bureau of Land Management are not going to save the Trump Presidency from disaster because the man will be a disaster.
He already has corrupted the Republican party on matters of character, fitness for office, mandatory maternity leave and host of other issues like National Security that Republican used to be really good on. The corruption will continue especially if he wins.
Exactly why it is important not to vote for a candidate so unworthy for office.
Laid out the hypocrisy in the lady’s own words. I wish she had not written as she had but she did.
It was the voters who showed up for GOP primaries who chose Trump, not because of his character but in spite of it, in order to spite the GOP Establishment who were obviously trying to steer the nomination to Jeb. Trump kept winning support from the low-information voters on our side because he was deliberately poking the Washington politicians in the eye, being outlandish and bodacious, saying politically-incorrect things that needed to be said, and looking like a “fighter.” The Republican Party was already corrupted, just by a different sort of corruption.
See, I think this is a corrupt attitude. You are elevating party over country.
I am an American Exceptionalist and American nationalist. Go Rabble Alliance.
Voting in people unworthy of the office makes you neither a nationalist nor an American Exceptionalist. It makes you some you support unworthy candidates for the greatest office in the greatest country on Earth.
Your argument is that we should give in to the Left now because if we don’t they’ll be mad at us in 2020.
Of course the Left will be supercharged if Trump wins. They will be supercharged and enabled by the White House and an increasing proportion of the federal bureaucracy if Hillary is elected. Among other things, IRS and malfeasance (which since the beginning of the Obama administration – much to the delight of the Republican establishment which loathed the Tea Party – increasingly starved the conservative movement of money. That will accelerate. Eric Holder will run a nationwide gerrymandering project.
11 million amnesties and increased legal and illegal immigration; probably 5 or six million strategically located new voters. You think the .gov is putting refugees in small towns across America to help the Republicans?
The advantage of electing Trump is to keep the Clintons out of the White House.
I am not in the mood to gamble my country’s existence on pure conjecture. That is the essence of a position allowing Clinton and her acolytes to take the Presidency…now or ever.
Putting Trump up as a candidate, same as putting Ben Carson up as a Candidate conceded the election to Clinton and her Acolytes. This was not a year for a novice politician and to put one up with Trump’s character was doubly flawed. I am not conjecturing about Trump’s character he does not have the character nor, the ideological chops to be a good President. I can’t predict all the ways that he will fail nor what he might do good. No one knows those things. But he clearly does not have what it takes to be president. He is unqualified for the job as is Hillary. They both will be terrible. Electing a terrible president will not weaken the left it will empower it.
Defeating Clinton would be grand! But knowing that the guy that did it is going to fail and fail terribly poisons that goodness for me. For all Americans that wish the best for the country and what to see us grow and become stronger on Nov. 8th there is no victory no matter who wins.