The following is a commentary I wrote last night as a response to a friend’s post, and I thought I would share here as well. The topic was “trusting (or not trusting) so-and-so candidate”. The version below has been edited and expanded on, with additional thoughts.
Not any one politician/candidate can satisfy all 200 million eligible voters in the USA, 100% of the time.
They all have to make compromises, and, yes, most of them say what they think we want to hear (in order to get elected).
Personally, I don’t call this “lying”, it’s “fibbing”, it’s a “white lie” (which, I guess, is the same thing).
(in my personal opinion, everyone lies at some point in their lives – if you agree with that remark, then, the question becomes, “who is lying the most, why are they lying, and, is it pathological?)
It’s very unrealistic for us to think that politicians / candidates can keep ALL their campaign promises – of course they can’t. No one could. The system, and the country, is way too complex for that. They have to deal with 435 individuals in congress and another 100 in the senate and convince a majority of them which direction to move this country. It’s hard enough trying to get 5-10 people in a room to agree on something, imagine if you had to try to convince 500.
For me, it’s not about “trust” or “trusting them”, it’s more about:
(>>>> we’ll talk about trust, later.)
- Are they smart, are they intelligent?
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Do they have a (realistic) vision of our country’s future?
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Do they have the ability to then inspire people (the country, congress, the senate, etc.) to take action on that vision?
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Do they have skills to compromiseand negotiate, with congress, with other world leaders?
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And, can they articulate their thoughts and be coherent when speaking to a., the public, b., to congress, c., to other world leaders, etc.?
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Will they listen to the public, to congress, to their inner circle advisors, to other leaders, etc.?
With all that in mind:
Is Secretary Clinton perfect? No. Absolutely not. Of course not. Can she be “trusted”? I truly don’t know – what (exactly) do you think Secretary Clinton cannot be trusted with?
Trusted with: Making decisions that are good for the country?? Every president in the last 75 years (since FDR) has always had a lot of very, very difficult decisions to make, and ALL of those presidents have, at times, make some incredibly stupid decisions, but a lot of them also have had the vision to LEAD this great country of ours to do some extraordinary things, and to do the “right” things, and also, to make a lot of good (or great) decisions as well.
Trusted to not make any mistakes?
EVERY person, EVERY president, EVERY leader, EVERY cabinet post level Secretary, EVERY business manager, EVERY CEO has made mistakes. The question is, did they learn from their mistakes, or do they keep repeating them, over and over?
(One thing I do know, in my opinion – Secretary Clinton is more “trustworthy” in this regard, than the Republican candidate.)
Talking about the republican candidate:
I am so VERY surprised the Republican Party could not find a better candidate to lead them – I mean, out of 200 or more republicans in congress, the senate, and/or state governors, he is their choice? Makes one wonder why they chose him. There are many more qualified republicans than Mr. Trump (as the majority of us know).
It’s not that I don’t “trust” Mr. Trump. I just don’t think he meets any of my six criteria noted above. If the Republican Party had found an intelligent person (and, yes, there are some very intelligent
Lastly, a president is just one person – the really smart ones usually surround themselves with people smarter than themselves (just like great managers, great CEOs, in business). I just don’t see the republican candidate doing that – AND, that is what scares me the most: him, not having any smart advisors to listen to, and/or, him not listening to those smart advisers, in times of crisis.
Also, I am so very against war, and I think there is potential for one candidate to lead us into (another) war (whether it’s with another country, or a civil war here between the states), and the other one will most likely not.
Neither candidate is “great”, most candidates are “compromises”. It all boils down to who you think the “best” candidate is, to lead this country of ours for the next 4 to 8 years. No matter if you truly don’t like either of them, it’s better to vote for one of them, as opposed to not voting at all.
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Thanks for listening.
I would enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions as to why you think either candidate would be a lousy, or bad, or just grossly incompetent president, or why, either candidate would be a “great” (or, just plain good) president.
