The 2016 Presidential campaign season has turned out to be an especially strange and somewhat depressing one. Neither option for president is particularly good, nor was the pool at the beginning of the race. Though it is a decision I was not happy to make want to make, it was at the same time not a particularly hard one. Nothing could be worse than a President Trump, and while he is the main reason my support has shifted to Clinton, it is not the only reason I think she is not a terrible choice for the job.
As Clinton herself has stated many times, she has an incredible well of experience to draw on if she is elected, from her years in politics and years handling America’s foreign responsibilities. No one can say she is unintelligent or does not calculate most of her decisions. Her experience in foreign affairs is a necessity in the modern world, and diplomacy is crucial if we wish to survive to the next election. Her opponent has said that he would rather blow up adversaries than talk to them.
Morally, Clinton is a choice I can make without feeling guilty. She is far more open-minded than Trump makes himself out to be, for she is against building a wall, and she claims to support much of the same social change Bernie Sanders did, though much less loudly and to a lesser extent. She is against illegally blocking people from entering the country or wasting our time and money trying to keep people out. She is also not openly racist, Isalmophobic, sexist or xenophobic, nor are these things a part of her platform. That is a promising quality of a president.
Hillary Clinton is also self-aware. She has been in the public eye for decades, and most likely knows that right now, she is on an edge in terms of how she will be looked upon in the future: she is conscious of how history will view her. She has done some good and made some mistakes, but her presidency is her chance to prove that history can look favorably on her. The country does not trust her, and she is known for being narcissistic, but this narcissism may be the country’s saving grace for once. Clinton knows she already has a spot in history, as a first lady, Senator and Secretary of State, but only time will tell if that is a positive position or a negative one. If she is a terrible president, history will remember her as that, and in all her mistakes, but if she manages to be a productive president, history should be kinder to her. It is in Clinton’s best interest to be a good president, which is why she will try her best to be just that.
Few people will be excitedly running to the voting booths, clamoring to vote for Hilary Clinton, but in my opinion, she is the best option we have at the moment.
