Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913

Still Undecided

In watching the debate on Monday night I was dismayed by the spectacle. “Is there really a choice?” I asked myself cynically. I felt as though I was watching a deranged and unabashed clown try to entertain the stiff, stuck up, and literal kid in school. You know the kid who corrects your grammar, and smiles awkwardly when someone points out that they, too, make mistakes. That was the scene at Monday night’s debate. Here was the long-winded, overly prepared, untrustworthy and suspect Hillary Clinton taking on the underprepared, pugnacious and juvenile Trump. I wasn’t a fan of either, but I digress.

So Clinton can talk for days on policy and details, taking on issue by issue with long-winded policy answers and well crafted thoughtful words put together almost certainly by aides and interns, but who cares? Every Harvard Law School graduate can produce well-thought-out arguments for policy that doesn’t mean they should be president. Americans need a leader, the World needs a beacon, an inspirational speaker, an overly dramatic, sometimes pugnacious, empathetic and caring benevolent leader, who rallies the masses taking on the foes of democracy while chanting battle cries. America craves this, and Hillary Clinton couldn’t give it. No personal anecdotes, no loving embrace of Americans in need, no “ask not” or “our fore fathers,” no “tear down this wall,” no “a date which will live in infamy” or “we will fight.” Just plain political answers to the straight forward political questions. No emotional call to end police killings of unarmed black men, no rally cry for the middle class to take back their country. It was depressing, but again I digress.

Trump was in true form, which may have been even more depressing. He came in acting like he was going to play ball. “Secretary Clinton, is that okay?” I want you to be happy,” he said, almost mockingly. Then he tried to stay on script, but with the little-to-no practice, a fact seemingly flaunted by his campaign, he showed his true colors quickly. His policy caved to the juvenescent rants of a deranged high school kid trying desperately to fight back with his “I know you are, but what am I” tirades. He tried desperately to land blows, even offering up his tax returns in exchange for 30,000 emails, only to have Clinton respond with a four-point attack on the returns implying Trump is a liar, a fraud, an embezzler and likely beholden to the very people he claims all other candidates are beholden too. It was a pitiful performance, and I instantly felt bad for my Conservative friends, but once more, I digress.

In reality, it was a terrible debate. Despite Clinton’s positive showing I am still not convinced. In a world where dictators annex countries, use chlorine gas on their citizens, where terrorists kill indiscriminately, where American murder rates are increasing by double digits, where race divisions have swept large swathes of our demographics, where the economy has taken sides and where the only hope for peace was international trade, I would have much rather had two people I could hope for. Two people who could bring us together. Both candidates are right when they speak about the “feelings” of America. We do seemingly hate each other for no reason other than politics, but that isn’t what being president is about.

As an independent voter, I swear off political alliances outside my whimsical ideal of freedom. I support candidates that are “leaders” true to form that bring people together, that assert in the face of adversity or threat that we will stand for what is right, for what is just, for what is brave and for what is free and accepting. I can’t say I felt anything after last night’s debate but cold despair. Of the more than 300 million Americans, this was the best we could do?

 

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