My Clinton Conundrum

Make no mistake! I will vote for Hillary Clinton to become the next president of the United States, and I will pray that she wins.

Of those with any chance of winning, she is by far the better candidate. It’s not even close.

In fact if I didn’t know how people laughed at Hitler and thought him a beer hall buffoon in the 1920’s I would not think Donald Trump had as ghost of a chance of being president.

But he does!

He effectively cleaned the clocks of a bevy of experienced Republican candidates to win the party’s nomination. That’s enough to scare me.

But what scares me even more is that the more outlandish things he says, the more some people rally to his support.

On one level I understand. People are hurting, and people are scared of the international terrorist threat the world faces. He talks tough and promises change. But his type of change violates every ideal of our democracy including but not limited to: Racial and religious equality, paying (and if you are a presidential candidate disclosing that you pay) your fair share of taxes, understanding that we are a country built by immigrants and doing what we can to help those escaping tyranny. The list is endless, and for more on why the election of Donald Trump would be disastrous, please do a search and read the previous essays in which I make this point on my webpage blog, www.findingourselvesinbiblicalnarratives.com.

And that brings me to Hillary Clinton.

I have expressed my concerns about her character and past actions in a number of Facebook posts. I shall not rehearse them further.

It concerns me that people who love and care for me, and whom I love and care about, have expressed anger and dismay that I would dare say negative things about Ms Clinton.

It disturbs me that some would try to suppress what I consider legitimate criticism of Ms Clinton. It disturbs that think so highly of her that they completely ignore the entire stream of concerns about her that have surfaced in the last 25 years and consider any criticism of her out of bounds.

It disturbs me too that because the election of Trump would be an unmitigated disaster, some think that any criticism of Hillary Clinton should be entirely proscribed.

To my mind the uncritical support of any candidate is inimical to our American democracy and dangerous for our country.

As I often say, “We have all been expelled from the Garden of Eden.” There is no perfect candidate. No, I am not crazy about Ms Clinton, and I have expressed my reasons. Not to do so would be to betray my conception of what our country, freedom of expression and our democracy is all about.

Having said that, I consider Hillary Clinton the best candidate running for President of the United States.

I support her, and I will vote for her, and I urge all of you who care about the future of our country and our children and grandchildren, whose lives will be affected by this election, to vote for her as well.