By John Joy ’18 Contributor
A note about the author: I’m fiscally conservative, but socially liberal and loathe both candidates equally.
Right now, America seems to have the Cleveland Browns of democracies. America has to choose between Donald Trump, a man who, according to CNN, flies to Russia every night and stares deeply into Putin’s eyes for hours on end, or Hillary Clinton, someone who, according to Fox, has bought out every media outlet with Saudi weapon deal money laundered through the Clinton foundation, a charity that apparently destabilizes democracies and installs dictators in the bottom half of the HDI index. Yet in this modern day age of blatant assumption and bias by the media, how much of this is actually true? I decided to do a bit of research and find out if there’s any truth in this House of Cards season 5 fanfiction.
For 30 years,Trump has been the butt of all late night talk shows, but apparently something was lost in translation and Trump actually thinks he’s the Republican messiah. By taking a “I call it like I see it” stance on most issues, he’s developed considerable support by being relatable to other Americans, taking stances that would be deemed career-ending if they were uttered by any other politician. Everything from birtherism to taxes have slid off Teflon-don, which is all the more reason to be concerned about his most recent scandal: his obscene comments towards women and recent sexual assault claims made by alleged victims. When he didn’t realize his mic was still on, he said many salacious things we can’t print in a school paper. While these comments are disgusting, and far from the “locker-room talk” he claims them to be, I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that by saying this Trump is a serial rapist. Nonetheless, the frequency of these cases alongside an awful temperament are making it hard for me, as a conservative, to come to terms with a potential Trump presidency.
Hillary Clinton has had the blessing of Donald Trump over the course of this election; were it any other Republican nominee tackling Hillary, she would be melting under the magnifying glass that is modern-day media. Short of the video of her passing out while walking to a van, in the eyes of the mainstream media she’s remained relatively scandal free. However, one very large scandal has been looming over her: The Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation is a private institution and enjoys all the benefits of being one; short of taxes, it doesn’t need to declare much. As a result, most information that’s been leaked has no context, and we can only speculate on any consequences of donations. However, a series of leaks have revealed a very interesting phenomenon with donors; NGOs and Nation States made substantial donations to the Clinton foundation while in negotiations with the Clinton Foundation, and soon after the money was received the negotiations came to an end. It wasn’t like Germany donated money to end negotiations on the integration of UN General Assembly resolution 11725 on renewable energy; for example, Saudi Arabia donated a sum upwards of $10,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation during the closing periods of key weapons deals. Kuwait, Quarter and the Sultanate of Oman all joined the 2 Comma Donor Club during the Clinton administration as well. However, it’s also important to note that these countries promote Sharia Islam which, while terribly oppressive, outdated, and dangerous, require those who practice the religion to donate 3-5% of their income to charity and may just as well be a religious obligation.
While these scandals do seem funny, and to a certain extent they have been bloated out of proportion by the media, they represent a key problem in this election that cannot be fixed. Say that, instead of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders was at the helm of the Democratic party when Trump’s statements regarding women were leaked. He could run a completely factual campaign against Trump for his statements, which, to some, is far more than words without trying to hold back in fear of Newton’s Third Law. Same goes for if John Kasich was in charge of putting out the dumpster fire that is the GOP right now, he could demolish Clinton for her gross neglect of nation security with the use of her email server, he could responsibly point out the potential conflicts of interest she has through her foundations as well. In closing, these scandals prove that this election has been a race to the bottom if you will, where both candidates aren’t trying to impart their values and ideals on the American people, but rather defend their actions and try to paint their opponent as worse. In the words of Dennis Reynolds, “This is an example of when democracy has failed”.
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