Imagine if the presidential race came down to Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, a wild card versus same-old, same-old.
There are many who would hate the idea of a Hillary Clinton becoming our next president. They are those who have nothing good to say about Hillary, period. They oppose her because they simply can’t stand her. I’m not one of those. Nevertheless, neither am I excited about her prospects for the presidency.
Regarding Hillary, I would make the following observation. There is nothing new and refreshing about her. Yes, people who have liked her from the beginning still like her. But how many new fresh and young supporters has she won over, will she win over? My guess is that she has added few wildly energetic and newly committed young devotees to her many supporters. Again, I’m not saying this because I dislike her. I’m simply making a personal observation. As I see it, her campaign seems to create no positive—“Let’s go! We can do this! Go get them!”—excitement. She has too much baggage, always needing to defend some past action or decision. What’s worse is that those who can’t stand Obama see Hillary as nothing more than an Obama copy, an Obama double, despite their ethnic/gender differences.
Compared to Hillary, there are those who apparently see Donald Trump as fresh, raw, and relevant (so it would seem). He is obviously scratching where people itch. But, thus far, that’s all he does—scratches. Far Right Wing Americans seem to like Trump’s nastiness, although they wouldn’t call it that. They think that he’s simply being honest and direct. Never mind that he actually acts like a bully. And as most bullies do, he displays a lot of bravado with very little substance. They like his spirit. He’s got attitude. And they like him for that. It’s as if having a fighting spirit and an in-your-face attitude is all that’s needed for the making of a good president.
So, if it were a choice between Donald and Hillary, it would seem that we’d be left with a choice between two tiresome polarized extremes: the Far Right—which always seems to be angry, stubbornly self-righteous, politically recalcitrant, mean spirited and bullying. Or the Far Left—which always seem to be wishy-washy and evasive, hard to pinpoint and pin down, seemingly with little or no hard-and-fast limits or boundaries, apparently making up their own rules as they go along.
Is there no candidate for mainstream America, the majority of Americans? I would like to think that most Americans want reason and balance, and mutual respect. Is it too much to ask for integrity in terms of message and process as well as in terms of outcome and results? Is it too much to ask for practical wisdom in terms of vision as well as in terms applied specifics? Must our choice come down to the two most opposite and most polarized candidates? Where is the voice of moderation and balance?
Would that we had a candidate that displays the wisdom of a Solomon? Would that we had a candidate that respects all Americans, left, right, and middle. (But our electoral process seems to exclude such a possibility.) Would that we had a candidate that had the ability to unite rather than divide, to include rather than exclude. Would that we had a candidate who knew how to lift the many with little expense to the few rather than lift the few at great expense to the many.
Would that we were a people willing to face hard realities and deal with them accordingly. Would that we were not a spoiled, selfish people that only think of our own comfort, ease, convenience, and wants at the expense of others and at the expense of our natural resources. Alas, would that we were all more responsible as a people and were a people that truly cared about our nation’s unity and future and were willing to give-and-take, respecting our differences. And finally, would that we were more interested in caring-for and preserving our nation’s natural resources rather than merely exploiting them so as to find appropriate means for energy consumption and are able to create new jobs that support such a value. I could go on with the “would that’s,” but you get my point.
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