In Elementary school, when we thought of the office of president we would picture a person with honor, intelligence, respect, trust, and great leadership. Come this November we will go to the polls and choose between two of the most disliked candidates in American history, who many would argue don’t possess any of the above qualities. Here are a few reasons why neither candidate is ready for the job.
Hillary Clinton
Hillary shouldn’t be president because she is bought out. The simple truth is when you have a candidate being given hundreds of millions of dollars from the same businesses that destroyed the economy in 2008 you can pretty much guarantee that they are expecting something in return. If we want to see real changes for normal Americans we need to put the concerns of Main Street over the concerns of Wall Street. Hillary also has a long history of scandals. Most recently she gave DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz a position on her campaign only days after an email leak revealed the DNC was giving Hillary preferential treatment over her opponent, Bernie Sanders. Health also plays a role in Hillary not being able to handle the presidency. Clinton was very physically exhausted after her four years as Secretary of State, and her 2008 campaign manager said that she was “physically weak and had low energy.” Putting all the scandals aside that Hillary has been involved in, I believe Hillary has poor judgement. It may not have technically been illegal for her to have a private email server as Secretary of State, but someone with good judgement would’ve probably known it wasn’t the best idea. If there’s one job out there that demands good judgment it’s the President of the United States.
Donald Trump
Trump encompasses everything that is wrong in this country. When times get tough we can either work together to try to find solutions, or we can blame other people for our problems. Trump is the candidate for the latter of those options. If you can honestly listen to the things that Donald Trump says about women, refugees, immigrants, military leaders, etc. and still vote for him then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your moral compass. Trump is not as great of a businessman as he wants you to think he is. He inherited millions from his father and grew that, but he has also declared bankruptcy several times just to leave creditors and everyday Americans to foot the bill. Someone that egotistical would be very quick to release his tax returns, unless they weren’t as impressive as he’d like us to think. Another shortcoming of Trump is that he doesn’t have one concrete policy. One day he’s for gay marriage, the next he’s not. One day he is pro choice, the next he’s pro life. If you’re looking for consistency, you aren’t going to get it from Donald. It’s also concerning that Trump doesn’t know some of the things that anyone considering a presidential run should know. He lacks common knowledge of basic U.S. treaties and international policies, and has put his foot in his mouth on several occasions because of this. Lastly, foreign policy would be a disaster under a President Trump. When you are dealing with other countries you need to be very level-headed and calculated, which is something that Trump hasn’t been at any point in this campaign.
As poor as these choices are, we did elect them as our candidates. At this point there’s not much we can do besides vote for whoever we think is less horrific, or roll the dice on a third party candidate. In the future, we need to pay closer attention to the people we are electing, and what they stand for. There were qualified, compassionate, visionary leaders on both sides of the ticket and we let them slip through our fingers.
Editor Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the journalists’ alone. They do not represent Her Campus at the University of Utah or Her Campus on an international level. Thank you for your devotion and dedication to our magazine.