What a depressing thought! And yet, immediately following the primary conventions and the nominations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, this phrase resounded within the Democratic Party: “the lesser of two evils”. Admittedly, Hillary is not perfect, so Democrats argued, but she is the lesser of two evils. No wonder that so many citizens in our country are cynical about their government and about their political system. We have come to the point that we are forced to choose the lesser of two evils for President of the United States. Just think about what this means! We have two candidates, both of whom we consider to be undesirable, and we are trying to decide which one of them will do the least damage to our country and to our personal lives. Like many of you who will read this article, I really don’t want either one of them, but since third party candidates have been excluded by our corporately controlled political system, I am faced with choosing one of them.
Looking at experience and knowledge, there is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the more qualified of the two. Donald Trump is inexperienced in politics, unpolished and careless in expressing himself; Hillary Clinton is experienced in politics, polished, but unfortunately careless with security information. The latter is definitely a problem because it reflects a lack of sound judgment. However, the real problem with Hillary Clinton lies deeper. As soon as we turn our attention away from experience and knowledge and we consider deception, subterfuge and downright corruption in politics, she is by far the worse of the two candidates. Take the charity issue, for instance. It is true that the NY Attorney General has opened an inquiry into the Trump Foundation, charging that the charity does not have the proper certification. Be that as it may, the dubious dealings of the Clinton Foundation over the years belong to a totally different category because they involved the Federal Government. Trump’s alleged noncompliance with State regulations is relatively insignificant in comparison with Hillary’s granting of political favors in exchange for donations while she was entrusted with one of the highest-ranking political offices in the Executive Branch. The same holds true for a comparison of Trump’s tax returns with Hillary’s e-mails. As Secretary of State, her actions had an impact on the security of our nation and represent a betrayal of public trust.
As far as I can determine, Trump’s major attribute in the eyes of many observers lies in the fact that he is a political outsider. He doesn’t have a history of corruption in politics because he has no history in politics at all. That’s not very reassuring. Still, on many issues, I think that a Trump presidency and a Clinton presidency would be very similar in substance, although diverging greatly in style. Neither of them is likely to take any major steps toward controlling global warming; neither of them is likely to rein in the excesses of Wall Street; neither of them is likely to solve the problem with ISIS; and neither of them is really interested in addressing the poverty in our country. In the end, both of them would be subject to the same external pressures as previous presidents have been, namely to those pressures emanating from Wall Street and Israel.
So in thinking about these two candidates, I have focused on the nomination process itself and its implications for our future. What concerns me is this: Whereas Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in a fair and equitable process, Hillary Clinton stole the Democratic nomination through devious, if not illegal means. Perhaps I belong to a minority of Americans who are bothered by this, but it truly disturbs me that Hillary obtained the nomination in the way that she did. I really don’t want a president who has cheated her way into the White House. That is not the America that I respect.
I sympathize with the women of our country who have waited so long for a female president and who are now bestowing their hopes and aspirations upon a woman not worthy of their honor and respect. I have followed the feminist movement for decades and have read much of the classic feminist literature from Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxième Sexe and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique through the so-called second-wave writings such as Carol Gilligan’s In a different Voice down to the many works of Julia Kristeva. Hillary Clinton is not what these serious writers envisioned, and I don’t think that most of them would be pleased with the precedent being set in this election. We are lowering the bar for ethical conduct in the political sphere below anything that we have ever known. In the future, candidates will look back at the chicanery and manipulation of Hillary’s campaign and feel completely justified in following her pattern.
So how do we decide about the lesser of two evils? I don’t think that there is simple answer to this question. In the short term, Hillary may well be the lesser of the two evils, but in the long run, I think that her election will do irreparable damage to our political system and to our sense of fairness in a democratic society.
Jack Brush is a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com
