The New Yorker Endorses Hillary Clinton

As seems to be the case with major print media outlets in New York City, Donald Trump's home town, The New Yorker has endorsed Hillary Clinton in a lengthy editorial.  As noted before, those most familiar with Trump seemingly cannot stand the man and view him with revulsion.  A sample line from the endorsement: "The vileness of her opponent’s rhetoric and his record has been so widely aired that we can only hope she will be able to use her office and her impressive resolve to battle prejudice wherever it may be found."  Sadly, Trump now represents the true face of the Republican Party base and even if Trump loses, as I pray is the case, the sickness within the GOP will not be eliminated.  Here are endorsement highlights:

On November 8th, barring some astonishment, the people of the United States will, after two hundred and forty years, send a woman to the White House. The election of Hillary Clinton is an event that we will welcome for its immense historical importance, and greet with indescribable relief. It will be especially gratifying to have a woman as commander-in-chief after such a sickeningly sexist and racist campaign, one that exposed so starkly how far our society has to go. The vileness of her opponent’s rhetoric and his record has been so widely aired that we can only hope she will be able to use her office and her impressive resolve to battle prejudice wherever it may be found.

On every issue of consequence, including economic policy, the environment, and foreign affairs, Hillary Clinton is a distinctly capable candidate: experienced, serious, schooled, resilient.

If she is elected, she will have weathered a prolonged battle against a trash-talking, burn-it-to-the-ground demagogue. Unfortunately, the drama is not likely to end soon. The aftereffects of this campaign may befoul our civic life for some time to come.

If the prospect of a female President represents a departure in the history of American politics, the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, the real-estate mogul and Republican nominee, does, too—a chilling one. He is manifestly unqualified and unfit for office.
 He favors conspiracy theory and fantasy, deriving his knowledge from the darker recesses of the Internet and “the shows.” He has never held office or otherwise served his country, never acceded to the authority of competing visions and democratic resolutions.

Worse still, he does not accept the authority of constitutional republicanism—its norms, its faiths and practices, its explicit rules and implicit understandings. That much is clear from his statements about targeting press freedoms, infringing on an independent judiciary, banning Muslim immigration, deporting undocumented immigrants without a fair hearing, reviving the practice of torture, and, in the third and final debate, his refusal to say that he will accept the outcome of the election. 

The prospect of such a President—erratic, empty, cruel, intolerant, and corrupt—represents a form of national emergency.

At a time of alarming and paralyzing partisanship, this is an issue that reasonable voices in both parties can agree upon. At last count, more than a hundred and sixty Republican leaders had declared their refusal to support Trump. Fifty national-security officials who served in Republican Administrations have done the same. The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Arizona Republic, the Dallas Morning News, and the Columbus Dispatch—all conservative newspapers, which have endorsed only Republicans for between seventy-six and a hundred and twenty-six years—have endorsed Clinton. USA Today, which has never endorsed a candidate, has declared Trump “unfit for the presidency” and has also endorsed Clinton.
 The combination of free-form opportunism, heroic self-regard, blithe contempt for expertise, and an airy sense of infallibility has contributed to Trump’s profound estrangement from the truth.  Hillary Clinton’s vision and temperament are the opposite of her opponent’s. She has been a pioneer throughout her life, and yet her career cannot be easily reduced to one transcendent myth: she has been an idealist and a liberal incrementalist, a glass-ceiling-smashing lawyer and a cautious establishmentarian, a wife and mother, a First Lady, a rough-and-tumble political operator, a senator, a Secretary of State. Her story is about walking through flames and emerging changed, warier and more determined. In her intelligence, in her gimlet-eyed recognition of both the limits and the possibilities of government, she’s a particular kind of inspirational figure, a pragmatist and a Democratic moderate. We wish that Clinton faced a worthy opponent: she deserves a less sullied, more substantive win. But her claim to our support goes far beyond the nihilism of the alternative. It is also notable that she has chosen as a running mate Tim Kaine, a highly capable politician with a record of genuine compassion; by contrast, the Republican Vice-Presidential choice, Mike Pence, has tried to position himself for the future on the national stage but has distinguished himself as one of the country’s most fiercely anti-gay politicians, declaring that marriage freedom would lead to “societal collapse.” The most important reason to vote for Clinton may be the matter of the Supreme Court. For two generations, conservative Justices have dominated the Court, and they have imposed their will on several critical areas of the law. Thanks to Citizens United and related cases, the law on campaign finance is in shambles, and wealthy donors now reign over the political process. In 2013, a five-to-four majority gutted the Voting Rights Act, perhaps the most important civil-rights law in American history, and Republican state legislators have taken advantage of this shameful moment in the Court’s history to limit the franchise of those who might vote against them—that is, minorities and Democrats. . . . . Clinton has a chance to lock in these gains, reverse some of the losses, and even augur a new, and very different, era on the Court.
 Despite the conspiratorial conjectures of Clinton’s opponents, her politics hide in plain sight. She is a committed progressive on many issues, including the rights of women and minorities; gun laws (she would expand background checks, close gun-show and Internet-sales loopholes, and repeal legislation that immunizes the gun industry from liability litigation); and, more recently, immigration (where she favors comprehensive reform, a pathway to citizenship, and an end to family detention). Clinton not only promises to be a vastly better President than her opponent; she has every chance of building on the successes and insights of a predecessor who will leave office with a remarkable record of progressive change and, in an often ugly time, as an exemplar of Presidential temper and dignity.

In Debates, Clinton Showed Why She Should Be President

Many early on recognized Donald Trump as being spectacularly unfit for the office of President of the United States.  Despite all his boasting, his business record is a mess and the fact that American banks will not make loans to him and his organization - hence his need for Russian money - ought to underscore his unfitness.  And that doesn't even get to the issue of his frightening temperament and uncontrolled narcissism.  The man is a train wreck and only a Republican Party too far gone in the process of hijacking by racists and Christofascists (see the prior post) could have nominated a man so lacking in so many ways.  Had a decent candidate been nominated, Hillary Clinton would face a harder task to win the election.  That said, an editorial in the Washington Post argues why Hillary has proven herself worthy of the presidency.  Here are highlights:

IF PRESENT trends continue — and we emphasize “if” — Hillary Clinton will be elected president on Nov. 8, in an ironic conclusion to a political year that supposedly belonged to outsiders and populists such as Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Why has Ms. Clinton, the “establishment” alternative facing the voters, wound up in the lead at this late date? According to much conventional wisdom, she is the beneficiary of structural factors, such as voter demographics, and of good fortune — in the form of the Republican Party’s spectacularly irresponsible choice of an incompetent nominee. 

Nevertheless, it is time to point out another reason Ms. Clinton is winning: She is earning it. She and her campaign have remained disciplined and even-keeled through tempests large and small — and through the tests of political communication and argument known as the presidential debates, both against Mr. Sanders and against Mr. Trump. It is not easy to stand on a stage for 90 minutes and parry words with an opponent, moderators and town-hall invitees; still less is it easy to do so while keeping one’s cool amid sleazy provocations and unpredictable insults from Mr. Trump. Through it all, Ms. Clinton has stayed focused on issues, laying out a program for the country that we don’t accept in every particular but that is well within the broad mainstream of plausible policy alternatives.

[S]he has kept her rhetoric civil and inclusive, in the face of an opponent bent on trashing the norms of democratic discourse. This is no mere style point. It is in a way substantive too, because this election has taken on importance beyond the already-high stakes for national policy; it has turned into a trial of our democratic culture. Certainly, Ms. Clinton has found ways to needle her opponent. But by preparing for the debates, using them to advance rational arguments and refraining from responding in kind to Mr. Trump’s lowest blows, Ms. Clinton has exemplified what’s still good about that culture. In fact, you might say she has reminded people of what’s good about “establishment” politicians . . . .

[W]e question the common assumption that any conventional Republican would be trouncing Ms. Clinton — especially because most of the Republicans usually cited were themselves trounced by the man now trailing the Democratic nominee. Ms. Clinton’s performance has apparently won her more appreciation from the electorate — a precious measure of political capital she will badly need if it does indeed fall to her to unite the country next year.

Omaha World Herald Endorses Hillary Clinton

It seems as if at least every other day a traditionally pro-Republican newspaper is coming out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.  As best I can tell, no significant newspaper anywhere in America has endorsed Donald Trump. Like so many other historically conservative newspapers, the Omaha World-Herald labels Donald trump as simply too dangerous of a choice and states that the only prudent choice is Hillary Clinton. Although not a Hillary fan - I backed Obama in 2008 - I have warmed to her, especially with trump being the only other real option.  Here are highlights from the World-Herald endorsement:  

There is little question that the presidential election of 2016 is perhaps the most unusual in our lifetimes.

Both of the major-party candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, have unheard-of negative approval ratings, with more than half the country viewing both of them unfavorably. Many votes will be cast this year AGAINST a candidate, rather than FOR a candidate.

The stakes are high. The United States has a debt — let’s call it outstanding loans — totaling nearly $20 trillion. The annual deficit totals an estimated $590 billion, which increases the national debt total each year.

The Middle East is a powder keg, threatening the stability of the world in general. . . . Multiple Supreme Court appointments are likely to take place during the new president’s term. Racial tensions are spilling over into actions in some communities across the country.

With that much on the line, the prudent vote would go toward the least risky candidate for president. Put another way, the candidate who would have the best chance to implement changes by working with Congress, foreign and domestic leaders and military leaders under normal circumstances as well as during a crisis.

That candidate is Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This endorsement comes after careful consideration and with some trepidation. . . . With that said, Clinton’s legislative experience and decades of political involvement — as first lady of Arkansas, first lady of the United States, U.S. senator from New York, secretary of state and two-time presidential candidate — make her the better prepared of the two major candidates for the office of president of the United States.

The risk of a Donald Trump presidency is simply too great.

His alienation of so many groups — women, the disabled, Muslim-Americans, former prisoners of war, the family of a Muslim soldier killed in action, Mexican nationals and Mexican-Americans — is too divisive.

Trump shows a lack of statesmanship that is fundamental to serving in the Oval Office.

He has revealed a lack of command over key issues, such as the nation’s nuclear triad, Russian aggression and the significance of NATO alliances, paired with a propensity for unrealistic hyperbole, such as his promise to end all crime and violence in the country, or to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and have the Mexican government pay for it, with no pragmatic path to achieve such aims.

His claim that he would have Iranian gunboats “shot out of the water” for taunting a U.S. Navy ship shows a reckless response that could trigger yet another Middle East war.

A man who lashes out impulsively when attacked should not be entrusted to command the world’s most powerful military.

These issues, coupled with his statements regarding women, including the taped comments about grabbing women’s genitals and forcing kisses on them, simply make it too difficult to inspire confidence in him as president and commander-in-chief.