Sunday, June 19, 2016

Trump, Middle East, Hillary Clinton

         If you do not live under a rock, you are aware of the upcoming presidential election in the United States. There were almost 20 Republicans running and only 3 Democrats. The front runner for the Republican Party is Donald Trump. Yes you read correctly, Donald fucking Trump. When I first heard that he was running, I thought it was a story from the Onion or another satirical news source. If you remember correctly, Donald Trump was the one who started the whole birther movement when Obama was running for president. Donald Trump is a failure as a businessman and husband. He has filed for bankruptcy numerous times and seems to rely on reality shows and shady business practices to make money. The fact that he is the front runner says a lot about the American people. I think that he is saying what most are thinking. He is a racist asshole and the American people are on board because of the whole Obama presidency situation. Obama is the most disrespected president in the history of presidents. A lot of his criticism from the GOP is racially motivated.
          Back to Donald Trump and his foolishness. The things that come out of his mouth are appalling. He is racist, xenophobic, and discriminatory. He wants to bring back fascism. He wants to deport Mexicans because they are rapists and drug dealers. He wants Muslims to wear a physical representation that shows that they are Muslims. (Sound familiar?) One thing I don’t know anything about is his plans for foreign policy. He does realize that most of the world population is nonwhite. He will have to deal with the people who he speaks ill of. What will his solutions be? Go to war? What about his presidential cabinet? Will they be fellow producers from his reality shows, or shady businessmen that he collaborates with? Trump is not a politician and maybe that is part of the appeal. But the downside is that he has no fucking idea what he is doing and is playing on the fear of the American people. Make America great again? What exactly does that mean? How does he propose this plan? He is backed by a former KKK leader because his ideology lines up with theirs. He is also endorsed by Farrakhan who is the current leader of the Nation of Islam. I find it ironic since it is a black organization Farrakan supports Trump’s discrimination against Jews.
           It is kind of funny since two of Trump’s three wives have been Eastern European born immigrants. I also don’t understand how he is popular with Evangelical conservatives. He is not running on a platform of Christianity and has even bad mouthed the Pope. (I guess that doesn’t count because Catholics are not “real” Christians.) He is a cheating, lying, manipulative person. Evangelicals are actually on board with this? At least Cruz and Rubio claim to be God-fearing men.
           (Side note: how the fuck is Cruz able to run for president in the first place? He is not a natural born citizen. He was born in Canada. If the rationale is that his mother was an American, how does that differ from Obama’s situation? Obama was born in the United States but people claim that at he was really born in Kenya. If this was the case, according to the Cruz justification, he would be eligible to run for president because his mother was an American. I couldn’t imagine a white women giving birth in Kenya during the time of de-colonization from Britain.)
            Trump has no real political substance. I don’t think he understands what it takes to be president. He falsely believes that he will get along with world leaders simply because he is Donald Trump. However, the foolishness that is coming out of his mouth as a candidate is turning off world leaders from even considering the idea of working with him. Some countries such as those in the UK and Germany are considering banning him from entering the country. This is disastrous because they are some of our greatest allies. Can you imagine if he became president and those countries banned the American president? Our relationship with those countries would be severed and that would make us easily vulnerable to more attacks. Not only that, but more countries would follow suit, especially because the UK still has a great influence in the world due to colonization. Fewer countries would have our back and others would take advantage of American weakness. If people think that the country has gone to shit under the leadership of Obama, they have another thing coming.
             I did not vote for Obama during either election. I think that his main issue is that he was not ready to become president. Yes he had political experience and a law background, but he was barely in the Senate before he announced his run for the presidency. He was not prepared to run the country. If he had waited and gained his bearings it would have been better. Would he still experience all the bullshit racism? Absolutely, but at least he would have been better equipped to run things. I do think that he has grown and learned a lot over the past seven years. I think people were quick to vote for him because he ran on a charismatic platform and people were shitty over George W. Bush running the country into the ground creating billions of dollars of debt and starting pointless wars. The appeal of Obama was that he was young, fresh faced, and yes black. However, not every black person in the country voted for him, even if they did, he still wouldn’t have won without the white vote considering that blacks only make up around 13% of the population.
             Obama is not different; he is the same of the same he just happens to be black. Of course he did things that some thought were impossible including rebuilding our relationship with Iran after the takeover by the Ayatollah’s. Ahmadinejad congratulated Obama on his first win of the presidency. This was the first time an Iranian leader had done so since the 1979 revolution and Ahmadinejad was also anti-American. Some might think this was simple and pointless, but in reality it was huge. If Trump becomes president, our rebuilt relationship Iran will disappear. Not only that, but they would be furious and even band together with other countries to attack. Can you blame them? Absolutely not.
               Obama has done a lot of work to try to repair broken relationships with countries in the Middle East, especially after the whole Arab Spring bullshit. I honestly think that was a ploy to get rid of the powerful leaders that had been in power for 25-40+ years. The idea of democracy appealed to the people and they decided to rise up and protest. The funny thing is that the people were content before this all started. Now that Hussein, Gaddafi, Mubarak, and others have been overthrown or killed the region is in even more turmoil. Before, people were joined together to oust these leaders. Now that they are no longer in power, it was been a power struggle to determine who will be in charge. These bullshit “democratic elections” are just that, bullshit. The countries are in shambles and the military has taken over. The countries are generally worse off than before. Gaddafi was one of my favorite world leaders, and Libya is a disaster now that his 40 year reign ended due to his assassination. People were content with him ruling for 40 years until democracy was thrown around. His rule was longer than the age of most of the citizens of Libya. Hussein being killed was the worst thing that could have happened to Iraq. While Hussein was a harsh man, he was an effective leader. There is no way that ISIS, ISIL, and IS could have formed under his leadership. He would have definitely controlled any uprising in the region. The region is without legit leadership so people are looking for answers and a way to gain control. If Hussein was still alive, along with the other world leaders who were ousted or killed, the region would still be under control and Americans wouldn’t be wasting their time trying to fight or bring democracy.
              At one point Americans backed these leaders simply because they kept the region under control. Another reason why democracy will never work in the Middle East is because it has never existed. There were always kingdoms and authoritarian forms of government. You can’t have something that has never existed for you. You can try but it will fail. Not only that, but democracy does not work for every country. It is unrealistic to think so.
              Ok now that I am off my soap box with the Middle East and foreign policy, I will return to the matter at hand.
                Donald Trump would be a disaster of a president. He thinks that the world’s and America’s problems can be solved simply by sitting down with leaders who can’t stand his ass or “bombing the hell” out of places. Has be not seen what has taken place when those things occur? I also think that presidents should have some sort of military experience. He was a draft dodger so what does that say about his commitment to protecting the freedoms that Americans, including himself hold dearly?
                All this being said, I am a Hillary Clinton supporter. I have been for about 20 years and I don’t give a fuck what anyone has to say about it. No, she did not serve in the military, but her father did. Back then it was difficult for women to be able to serve anyway. Hillary Clinton did a fine job as Secretary of State and world leaders generally welcomed her and her support. Is she perfect? Of course not, she is not only human but a politician as well. So saying that she is a liar and corrupt is pointless. All politicians are liars and corrupt to some extent. I wholeheartedly acknowledge her flaws. Has she said and done foolish things? Of course she has, thank the universe none of them have been as ridiculous as Donald Trump.
               Hillary did not use the Clinton name to get into politics. She graduated with a Political Science degree as well as a law degree. She has been active in politics since she was a teenager. She actually did not change her name to Clinton after she was married because she wanted to keep her and Bill’s political lives separate because she did not want people thinking that. She also wanted to continue to have her own identity and not be known as the governor’s wife. The only reason changed her name was because it looked bad as Bill was running for governor again after losing reelection and advisors urged her to do so as his opponent constantly threw shade because her last name was different. People like to also point out that she flip flopped parties. Hillary was a Republican back when the party was still the party of Lincoln. As the Southern strategy became popular, she realized that her ideas no longer matched up with theirs and she became a Democrat.
Hillary is my political inspiration. She is the reason why I became involved in politics and pursued a Political Science degree. She is the reason why I am a feminist and an advocate for women’s rights along with the rights of the disadvantaged and underrepresented. I had the opportunity to volunteer for her campaign in 2008 and it was hands down the best experience of my entire life. If she wins the Democratic nomination which it looks like she will especially after Super Tuesday, I will be honored to do it once again.
              I definitely went off topic with this post but such is life for a political scientist. I have covered Donald Trump, the Middle East, and Hillary Clinton.
              Bottom line: Trump would be a horrible mistake for the country, the Middle East was better off before Arab Spring, and Hillary Clinton is fucking awesome!
            

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