Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:30 pm
It’s a well-known fact that Hillary Clinton is not the most exciting or likable presidential candidate to seek the office.
It’s true that as a woman, her ascent to the top of American government – all while facing attacks and standards often not faced by her male counterparts – has been inspiring, but she has always lacked the charisma of a Barack Obama and the “understands my pain” of a Bill Clinton.
She is a politician with decades of baggage and her reserved style has opened her up to plenty of attacks over the years: She’s a criminal (not true), she’s a murderer (not true), she’s a serial liar (not true).
All of this is why, on average, she is seen unfavorably by just over half of the American public. Not as bad as Trump, but clearly not the best number.
But let me repeat what I’ve told about a million anti-Hillary loyalists throughout this campaign: National presidential elections are not favorability contests.
When voters head to their polling places on Tuesday, they will not be voting on whether they like Hillary Clinton. Instead, they will be choosing between two candidates, regardless of how unhappy they are about those options.
What we shouldn’t do is confuse this unhappiness with difficulty. The choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is not an unsolvable math equation – it’s actually pretty simple.
Hillary Clinton should be the next President of the United States – and the reasons why all boil down to policy and temperament, not personality and conspiracy theories.
On wages, Trump thinks they’re too high and Clinton wants to raise them. On higher education, Trump hasn’t released an official plan and Clinton is proposing debt-free tuition at public universities. On campaign finance, Trump wants to protect the Supreme Court decision that has allowed dark money to pour into our political system; Clinton wants to overturn it. On climate change, Trump thinks it’s a Chinese-created hoax, while Clinton has a comprehensive plan to address it. Trump wants to build a wall and enlist a deportation force; Clinton wants to secure the border in a sensible way without shipping 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the country.
When it comes to matters of foreign policy, the contrast between the two candidates is even more apparent.
Trump wants to implement torture (war crime), target and kill the innocent relatives of terrorists (war crime) and impose a religious test on those hoping to enter the United States (unconstitutional). As if these aren’t terrifying enough, he talks casually about using nukes and has said that more countries should have access to these weapons.
Hillary Clinton, while occasionally being too eager to support interventionist military policies, has repeatedly shown that she knows what the hell she’s talking about when it comes to foreign affairs. She’s also been at the forefront of important international policy decisions over the years: taking out Osama bin Laden, negotiating an arms reduction treaty with Russia, scoring a Gaza seize-fire, and laying the groundwork for a deal to cap Iran’s nuclear program.
In the debates, Clinton was prepared and showed she at least understands the complicated world she seeks to lead. Trump, on the other hand, displayed that his knowledge is no deeper than a 140-character tweet.
But aside from the policy disagreements, perhaps the biggest difference between Clinton and Trump is their temperaments.
While the Democratic nominee has withstood decades of attacks from people who passionately despise her (without once taking to Twitter to throw a tantrum), Trump makes it his mission to childishly bully anyone who doesn’t worship the ground he walks on.
He even repeatedly denigrates those who have done nothing at all to him: Mexican immigrants, Muslim Americans, women he deems unattractive, Gold Star families, former pageant contestants, federal judges, POWs, people with disabilities – rinse and repeat.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t – and shouldn’t – matter if Hillary Clinton isn’t the most warm-and-fuzzy politician to seek the presidency. What she wears, how she speaks and the fact that her detractors have memorized a giant list of supposedly disqualifying non-scandals aren’t relevant to me, especially in this kind of election year.
If we pull back from the reality show version of politics that has fueled Donald Trump’s candidacy and instead look at which candidate is most qualified and offers the most realistic and sensible domestic and foreign policy proposals, the choice couldn’t be clearer.
In a conventional general election environment, perhaps Hillary Clinton’s likability numbers would make her a weaker nominee. But this is no typical campaign, and there is just a tad bit more at stake.
Four years ago, I cast my ballot to re-elect the first African-African president. On Nov. 8, I will vote for the first female commander-in-chief.
It’ll be the easiest choice I’ve ever made.
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