On one end of the spectrum, we have a nontraditional, outsider candidate. Donald Trump is a seasoned businessman, born into and raised from privilege. He knows a whole lot about running a business, as I’m sure you’ve heard, but he’s new to politicking. And he’s incredibly bad at it.
On the other end is an experienced, eloquent candidate, supported by everyone from The New York Times to George H.W. Bush. Secretary Clinton is a Yale-educated former lawyer who first took up politics as a senator for New York. As veteran of American politics, Clinton has a deep understanding of the nitty-gritty policy details, a strong commitment to public service and a laundry list of experience. She is, by far, the most qualified person to ever run for the office of President of the United States.
There is absolutely no contest.
Monday night’s debate didn’t do anything revolutionary. We’ve seen all of that before. We know that Donald Trump lies. We know that Clinton is a policy buff. We know that Trump has no concrete policy ideas. No real idea of how to navigate the stresses of holding political office. No foreign policy experience. And we know that Clinton thinks it’s funny.
We know.
So who cares, right? Well, I figured that cramming the candidates onto one stage and forcing them to respond to the same set of questions was going to flip some sort of switch. Turn a lightbulb on. Shock some reality into people. I really did think that it was shamefully obvious that there is absolutely no contest.
But, surprise, I was wrong.
Hillary Clinton rose to the occasion on Monday night. She came out swinging — which is what I knew she would do, by the way. She sported the power-red suit and the classic Hillary-do, all just to prove that she’s presidential and not above taking him down. She pointed out his inconsistencies. His track record with women. His lack of policy knowledge and unpreparedness for office. And not only that, but she answered most questions with a direct, well-versed response and made sure to emphasize fact over fiction. According to this criterion, she won. Ask any debate society out there, I’m sure they’d agree with me.
But according to a recent online poll, voters think Trump won the debate. Clinton’s just a liar to them, another shrill voice they can’t stand listening to do, a “Washington Insider.” There is no changing their perception; they’ve made up their minds and that’s fine. It’s the apathetic people, many of them millennials, whom I have a problem with.
I was a Bernie Sanders supporter and a pretty vocal one. I canvassed for him in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, volunteered at one of his rallies and heard him speak live twice. I wholeheartedly believed in his message and spent an insane amount of time arguing with people about the fact that my support for him was rooted not in blind idealism but in the idea that change means changing the framework rather than working within it. He has a certain type of revolutionary fervor and rhetoric that young people like myself, faced with a depressingly uncertain future, need to hear to sleep at night. We felt like we mattered and, in politics, we usually don’t, because we don’t really vote as a demographic.
I’ll be honest: I was not enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton in the slightest and I still have my qualms with her. She’s terrible on privacy, bad on the environment, supports charters, blindly supports Israeli occupation of Palestine, is cozy with Wall Street and is as hawkish as they come. But to be apathetic to these facts is doing yourself, and your country, a great disservice.
No, the debate wasn’t a “mess” on both ends of the spectrum. No, Clinton isn’t as bad as Trump. No, Obama can’t run for a third term (Clinton and Obama’s policies are identical, by the way, so if you like one you’re gonna like the other). No, you’re not voting for the lesser of two evils. Why? Because Clinton isn’t evil!
Why did I decide to support her? Because I realized that most my qualms with her were not rooted in policy but, rather, in likability and trustworthiness. Clinton may not be my dream candidate but at least she, unlike her opponent, is responsive to social pressure. If she is pushed in the right direction, she will stay there. You saw it after the democratic primary and you will probably see it well into her presidency.
Monday night’s debate affirmed why I stand with her. She was presidential, outlining detail after detail of her complex policies, while he was incoherent, neurotic and untruthful. She listened, making direct eye contact while doing so, while he proceeded to interrupt her time after time. She told the truth, relying on the dense facts, while he lied without paying any mind to the consequences.
There is absolutely no contest.
