Over the years as I've grown a little bit more aware of politics and government I've developed a healthy scepticism of politicians and world leaders. At the very basic minimum, I've realised that leaders have to make difficult choices and decisions and no one is ever going to agree with everything any of them do and they'll receive criticism from someone regardless of what they do. And that getting things done in a large organisation (or the wider world) takes diplomacy, compromise and and ability to generate consensus.
In the upcoming presidential election, the US voter has a choice. Option one is Hillary Clinton, who's been involved with government for the past 30 years and has huge amounts of experience in getting things done and keep the wheels of government rolling. There's been controversy over her use of a private email server while secretary of state which the FBI have just cleared her again of criminality.
In that 30 years, she's had to make difficult decisions with regards to government decisions, be involved with wars and is responsible for the consequences of those actions, lots of which are pretty negative (loss of life is never a good thing). But in that same time frame she's also been involved with and responsible for a number of good things. Having been part of government for that long means it's guaranteed that she'll have changed her views since the beginning of her career and also have made numerous backroom and unsavoury deals in order to get things done. There's skeletons in everyone's closet.
And the other choice is Donald Trump. A candidate with just the most outrageous public views on a whole range of minority racial and religious groups, no practical experience of government, a number of ridiculous policies, who has alienated the party he's managed to get nominated by, denied holding views thats he's documented and filmed to have held, proven himself to have a notoriously thin skin for personal attacks whilst attacking everyone else, is a businessman who lost a billion dollars in a single year and as a result hasn't paid taxes for the last 18 years whilst attacking others for allegedly not paying taxes, also hasn't published his tax returns which convention says should be done by presidential candidates and has been filmed casually discussing his preferred method of sexually assaulting women.
I repeat, how is this still a question? The choice is between these two for, in essence, the most powerful person in the world, a leader who will be taking responsibility for how the world runs for the next four years and who will have to make supremely difficult decisions. We simply cannot have a person as volatile as Trump in that hot seat. People will disagree with policies and personal positions on both sides and that will colour their opinions but even if they were both horrible people, at the very least Hillary can pretend to be a decent human being and knows what the decent and non-offensive things to say in public are. Trump's public views are incredibly divisive, offensive and dangerous.
America, please stop this ridiculousness and show the world that offence and division are not the way forward.
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