Clinton scores, Trump flops, voters lose

Ian Kea

By Claire Schneider
By Claire Schneider

Only 9 percent of the United States population voted to make Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump the nominees for their respective parties. Monday night the 91 percent that did not vote in the primaries saw their two statistical best chance candidates for President. Needless to say, the result of the debate was disappointing and the American population has no one to blame but themselves.

The night consisted of multiple calls for fact checks, name-calling and virtual punches you could easily imagine in action. Trump and Hillary both stumbled and fell into each other’s traps. Clinton started out poised and yet broad claiming yet again economic prosperity with a job plan that creates 10 million jobs yet once again fails to mention a single detail.

Trump attacked and Hillary laughed all night. From taking credit for the birther movement, calling climate change a hoax as well as including many historical inaccuracies, Trump lit himself on fire.

The first example of that is when Trump was asked about the birther movement and his backtracking on the issue. “What do you say to Americans, people of color who…” said moderator Lou Holt. In response, Trump stated, “Well, it was very — I say nothing. I say nothing, because I was able to get him to produce it. He should have produced it a long time before. I say nothing.” Trump single handedly credited himself for finding President Obama’s birth certificate, a feat that never involved him at all.

He then went on to joke about climate change. Climate changes are important because they will severely impact Boston, as well as many other parts of the world, as sea levels will rise dramatically in 2050, even to the point where a proposed canal and gondola rides in Back Bay could be a legitimate answer, according to Pri.org. Boston is historically built on wetland and Logan Airport is a manmade peninsula. Boston will flood even worse than New York City according to the City of Boston.

Donald Trump’s response to climate change was according to his twitter in 2012, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” In January he again admitted to believing climate change as a hoax again, stating, “Well, I think the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money. … I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China. Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change. They burn everything you could burn; they couldn’t care less.”

Even after these exaggerated responses, Trump went on to reiterate that ISIS is the biggest threat to America and that it is Sec. Clinton’s fault, yet he and Sec. Clinton both supported the initial Iraq war to destabilize the Hussein regime.

In the latter part of the night Trump blamed Obama for the Iraq pullout of troops yet that date was not made by President Obama rather President George W. Bush. With NAFTA, Trump criticized potential first man and former President Bill Clinton on the disastrous trade deal that was actually negotiated and signed by Republican President George H. W. Bush. Trump also attempted to play up his shrewdness by touting his small loan from his father of only one million dollars helped aid his empire.

In fact it was actually 14 million dollars. What small business gets a small 14 million dollar loan as a startup? Very few if at all, none. Trumped up trickle down economics has a history of being a loser. Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times increasing the debt so much it surpassed a 67 percent increase. Compare that to Obama who has raised the ceiling six times and has not yet hit 40 percent. Let’s also not forget that it is Congress that has the power of the purse.

Trump’s tax plan proposed cuts from 35 percent to 15 percent for businesses yet what he fails to mention is that the government would lose revenue and that the lost revenue would mean a tax increase on the dissolving middle class. This trickle down theory allows for the government to incur more debt while the middle class will lose income.

Moreover, what both candidates fail to realize is that without a strong consumer class, people cannot buy products and when the majority of people do not buy products and or food, nothing happens. When nothing happens, investors don’t invest and thus we have the recession of 2008 once again.

Sec. Clinton, from a policy standpoint won this debate. She was accurate with over 90 percent of her content, yet again with her history of lip flopping from the TPP, gay marriage and the Iraq War- her word is not valued. Yet, Trump is obviously the much more uneducated and unrealistic person to understand the complexities of government and implementation of them.

America has a loser and it’s the voters.