Come this November, an election will take place to decide who will be the newest leader of the United States of America. All over the country, polling places will be filled with individuals casting their vote for the candidate of their choice. At this point in time, many have already made up their minds on who they're going to vote for and refuse to give audience to any outside way of thinking. However, as a college student who writes for an online publication, it's kind of my job to share my opinion with you all regardless. While usually, I'm not one to get all political with my posts, I feel like this topic is one that requires me to say something. This year's election pits two incredibly controversial individuals against each other. Many like to argue that both of these candidates are absolutely terrible and simply unfit for office. This election has quite honestly turned into who not to vote for. It's no longer about who's the better choice, but rather who's the worst. When we look at it this way, it's clear which one is truly worse, and it's Donald Trump.
First, let's look at this from a qualification standpoint. Hilary Clinton has years upon years of political experience, even serving in as high of office Secretary of State.
Donald trump, on the other hand, has none. Zero. Absolutely no experience at all. If you compete for any other job with zero experience against someone with years of it, you're not going to get that job. Why should the position of Commander in Chief be any different?
Next, let's look at proposed plans for being in office. Both candidates, for the most part, have policy ideals that align with their party. Donald Trump, however, says he wants to do a little more. He has stated that he wants to repeal the gay marriage ruling that allows homosexual individuals to marry. Now, regardless of how you feel about gay marriage, we can all agree that withholding rights from a group of American citizens is wrong. Many people also forget that married couples in America have additional rights and benefits that unmarried couples do not. If Trump were to actually repeal this act, he'd be purposely taking away the rights of hardworking American citizens.
Something else Trump wants to do is to build a wall between us and Mexico. He wants to block off all immigration into the US and even refuse some groups of people any entry at all. Need I remind you all that America was a country founded by immigrants. Refusing someone admission into the United States is actually one of the most un-American things you could do. Now, I understand that we cannot allow illegal immigrates in since that would be detrimental to the legal citizens of this country. However, completely shutting down immigration altogether from a group of individuals just because of their national background or religion is simply unethical. To me, the real problem isn't the fact that he wants to build this wall, it's the fact that he's using it to purposely keep groups of people out. Donald Trump blames certain groups of individuals for the state that this country is in. In many of his early speeches, Trump specifically called out a few different religious and ethnic groups as the source of most of America's problems, using some fairly racist language as well. Can you recall another leader that blamed religious and ethnic groups for his country problems? I know Germany remembers.
However, to me, it's who Trump is as a person that makes him the clear, worst possible choice for president of the United States. I could go on for days with horrible stuff examples of things he's said, done, and tweeted. Which in itself is simply awful. How can he have said and done so many awful things and still be considered a true presidential candidate? Making fun of a handicapped reporter, attacking individuals on twitter like a teenage girl, and, most recently, having an audio clip leaked in which he promotes sexual assault. I've always been appalled by the things Trump has said and tweeted, but after I heard the audio clip, I was honestly sick to my stomach. Here we have a potential leader of our country talking about women as if they were only put on this earth for his personal use. It's absolutely disgusting. In his response to the clip leak, Trump said that it was "locker room talk" and that he was younger and immature. Now, if I said that I was immature ten years ago, that would be an accurate statement, as I was twelve years old. Ten years ago, Donald Trump was sixty. I feel like you can't really describe a sixty-year-old as immature. If you talk like that when you're sixty, you're not immature, you're an asshole.
As I said before, there are a multitude of different examples I could choose from that display exactly what kind of man Trump really is. However, they all perfectly describe a racist, homophobic, and sexist man who already has too much power. As American citizens with a shred of common sense and human decency, we should draw the reasonable conclusion that Trump is unfit, inexperienced, and unpresidential. When all is said and done, deciding NOT to vote for Trump is no longer just a political decision. It is a discussion of kindness, of choosing a decent human being and a person of strong morals and family values (all of which the members of the Republican party who have chosen to endorse Trump have historically and consistently emphasized for decades, by the way), of choosing a person who respects people of any gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc.; to represent our country and what it should stand for. Trump is certainly right about one thing, America is broken. But I'll tell you something else, electing a broken man to lead a broken nation will only result in disaster.
