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It is not a vote for liberalism or conservatism, it is a vote for a questionable personality

By Christopher Curran
Posted 11/2/16

With Nov. 8 looming in the immediate horizon like a dark foreboding cloud of uncertainty, it is important to reflect upon whether or not the major party candidates have a concrete and recognizable ideology that we the voter might espouse to. However,

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View on the News

It is not a vote for liberalism or conservatism, it is a vote for a questionable personality

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With Nov. 8 looming in the immediate horizon like a dark foreboding cloud of uncertainty, it is important to reflect upon whether or not the major party candidates have a concrete and recognizable ideology that we the voter might espouse to. However, more so than perhaps ever before in presidential election history, we have two candidates in which we cannot be sure what they actually believe in.

Originally a Republican, Hillary Clinton has spent the last decade mostly feathering her family’s nest at the cost of the wholesale discounting of her supposedly progressive beliefs. Originally a Democrat, Donald Trump has spent his entire adult life accumulating wealth on the backs of others and has long been an extensive donor to Democrat causes and candidates.

Whether both of these competitors have experienced an evolution in their political values or maybe have sacrificed standpoints for expediency is a pertinent question to answer prior to arriving at the polling station. Does either of these contenders mean what they are saying on the stump, or are their

painstakingly crafted speeches merely an alluring fiction? Additionally, are their stated positions variable dependent upon audience or the prevailing winds of tentative public sensibility?

Notables have commented how many of Trump’s stated policy positions are not reflective of true conservatism. Equally, pundits have cited how Clinton’s elasticity regarded liberalism does not serve true progressive believers. Neither of these candidates can be counted upon for reliability of political conscience.

Most prospective voters are perplexed about who to vote for in this election. Anti-voting will sadly be more prevalent than casting a ballot of enthusiastic endorsement for a candidate that reflects our affirmative beliefs. If Clinton prevails, there is no guarantee that the cause of liberalism will be served. Similarly, if Trump wins there is no likelihood that the cause of conservatism will be supported. Succinctly, Americans will be casting a negative ballot against a personality they find repugnant and unacceptable. Thus whoever wins, no matter what the margin of victory, will have no mandate of consequence whatsoever.

According to public records in New York, Trump has changed his political party affiliation five times since the age of majority. Prior to 2012, in a period from 2001 to 2009, the Donald was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. He attended Democrat fundraisers and gave generously to Democrat candidates at the municipal, state, and federal levels.

His stated public positions included supporting a woman’s right to choose in regard to abortion rights. He widely supported the lesbian-bisexual-transgender-gay-questioning (LBTGQ) community’s political agenda. He favored the PATCO Union when the traffic controllers conducted their national strike in the early 1980s against conservative icon President Ronald Reagan. He was complimentary toward African-American activist Al Sharpton when he was caught fabricating stories in regard to the New York City police department’s supposed misdeeds against the black community.

Also, Trump has used illegal immigrants from Poland as employees to do demolition on building projects in NYC and he used illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America in his resorts in Florida. Yet, his signature issue in this campaign has been the scourge of illegal immigrants stealing jobs from American citizens.

To exculpate himself from his liberal positions of the past, Trump has said that he took these far-left positions and funneled financial support to Democrat candidates for business reasons related to zoning variances and renovations and conversions in urban communities. If this excuse is valid, it speaks volumes to the apparent fact he holds no political convictions. He is mercurial in order to pursue more wealth. Avarice became his only guiding principle.

The Donald Trump of the 2016 campaign season has not proved his conservative bona fides, either. Political professional operatives have been confounded as to Trump’s degree of conservatism. Cable television network MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough has called the Donald a “centrist Democrat on social issues.” Economist Paul Krugman termed Trump as a “populist authoritarian,” not a conservative. In September of this year, NBC News cited 117 reversals or other distinct policy shifts. According to Politifact, a political statistical service, in a span of a few weeks Trump on 17 occasions said one thing then denied what he said in regard to policy within one day of stating his position.

Steeped in anti-government rhetoric, Trump has employed the speech devices of fascist leaders of the 20th century. Picking a universally culpable enemy, accusingly due to wrongheaded policymaking and stagnancy in our own government, Trump has demonized Washington, D.C., as guilt-worthy for any American’s lack of upward mobility. This idea is converse to the conservative notion of self-reliance and self-determination.

Further, Trump has co-opted several liberal/progressive traditional political positions. He has promised absolute protection of entitlements for the elderly. Also, he is a proponent of significant taxpayer-funded infrastructure investment. He has proposed expanded childcare leaves and tax relief for parents with young children, which is right out of the liberal playbook.

These standpoints have caused many righteous Republicans to question why Donald Trump is the nominee of their party when he does not respect GOP core values.

Clinton, on the other hand, is often a chameleon on her political stands. At the inception of her presidential run this time, she projected herself as a moderate. However, when her primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders galvanized millions by heralding left-leaning socialist policies, she started to incorporate them into her running platform. Before Bernie’s unexpected popularity, Hillary never proposed free tuition for state college students. Now she does.

Back in 2001, Clinton supported a bankruptcy reform bill that made it much more difficult to discharge consumer debt and student loan debt. Currently, she proposes loosening those laws and allowing student borrowers to obtain debt absolution.

In fact, of Hillary 38 policy papers which run the gambit of varied issues and campaign promises, one would deduce that many positions especially concerning Wall Street practices and taxation are downright moderate bordering on conservative. She was against raising taxes on dividend income and she was against the idea of a transaction premium tax. Now, post-Bernie, she has made a 180-degree turn. Clinton supported the bank bailouts in 2008-09 and was instrumental in regard to bringing the $783 billion stimulus to fruition. Perhaps it is no wonder that Wall Street firms have paid her and her husband grand sums for honoraria. The texts of those speeches have been quashed, but those who have written about her addresses to investors have described them as pro-Wall Street and undoubtedly conservative.

In somewhat of an about face, during the campaign Clinton has spoken in critical albeit vague terms: “It’s our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so it doesn’t run amok.”

Furthermore, Clinton’s infrastructure plan using public/private partnerships as in Pennsylvania are definitely startlingly different than the Democrat norm of taxpayer-insured bonding. According to the ultraconservative Hoover Institution, “Clinton’s infrastructure plan has been widely praised by economists across the political spectrum.”

Additionally, Clinton has been hawkish in matters of war. She was supportive of George W. Bush’s adventures in regard to Iraq and sometimes voted against Democrat interests as a senator.

Consequently, among all the factors that are perplexing in this circus of an election is the inescapable fact that the Republican nominee has had many liberal leanings in the past and the Democrat nominee has many moderate to conservative leanings previous to this run for office. So does either of them truly stand for what they are expressing now? I am not sure that extraordinarily important question can be answered considering these two shape-shifting candidates. So, conservatives and liberals will lament the opaqueness of Donald and Hillary.

We eternally hopeful voters tend to imbue the candidate we prefer with qualities we wish him or her to have, not necessarily what their political character actually is. In this election year, your vote is truly a shot in the dark!

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