With thoughtful consideration, The Bridge News has collectively come together to endorse Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. The decision comes from months of analysis from Clinton’s rhetoric, campaign, and performance, but her tenured history and knowledge have been the main deciding factors of this endorsement.
Before spending time how qualified she is, we took into consideration the current climate of the national and the world.
Starting with the federal government, congress is heavily divided. The true source to all of the woes and worries in America originate from the fact that two polarized parties have divided congress. Obstructionism and gridlock have made passing legislation an almost impossible task. The Republicans in congress understand that if they block any measure, whether moral or immoral, they would be able to discredit President Obama, and make it more difficult for him to have a Democratic successor.
Now we understand that the Democrats played the same game from 2006-2008 during that latter of the Bush Administration. It is without a doubt that Obama has pushed the Democratic Party further to the left. However, Clinton has spent her campaign contrasting from Sen. Bernie Sanders in order to push her party to the center. Her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, is evident of this. Clinton has been endorse by many moderate Republicans, and has a chance of creating a coalition government amongst them and the likely Democratic majority in the Senate.
Clinton is also very experienced in foreign affairs, and her Republican counterpart is not. Donald Trump has praised Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Putin has done the same. Putin has transformed himself from the second president of the Russian Federation to the returning Czar of a new Russian empire. Putin presents himself as strong, but he is really just afraid. He is afraid because the American military, the European Union, and NATO are all located just right of the Russian border. The former Soviet Satellite states rushed in order gain membership in the EU and join NATO. Ukraine, what Russia has historically considered its backyard, is following this trend. Putin hates this. Putin is using his military expeditions in Ukraine and Syria because he already failed the Russian people in their economy. Putin disrespects Obama because he knows is tenure is soon finished, and he does not have congress that would support, but he fears Clinton because she could four to eight years to dismantle Russia, and likely have a supportive congress to do so. The Cold War is over and relations with Russia have been exponential more productive since the Berlin War crumbled, but Putin, a dictator much like the ones we have defeated in our past, has presented the same dilemmas America has faced.
In the Middle East, new conflicts have arisen. However, what many people fail to see is that what is happening in Iraq and Syria is similar to what happened in Europe during the World War II. Evil dictatorship and radical extremists have brought war and chaos against national sovereignties. The Free Syria Army in Aleppo is fighting for democratic freedom. The democratic Iraqi government is fighting for their freedom from a savage enemy. On the Iraqi front, the Iraqis are winning, and the Islamic State there could be defeated before the next president is sworn in. The largest and most organized insurgency in Iraq is being defeated without U.S. troops having to make a massive invasion. This type of strategy that Obama has used is the type that Clinton plans to continue. The national building from the Bush Administration is coming full circle. Iraq and Afghanistan should be respected for the hard work they do fighting the hard battle against terrorism. Instead of being ridiculed by Trump, they need continued support, but the U.S. can’t go and continually fight their battles for them. We failed this Vietnam, and it should not happen again.
At home, our economy is growing. We took a painful hit in 2008, one that many of us still remember. However, some of us have forgotten how we got there. We forget that the deregulation of our economics from the Reagan Era accumulated in the years that followed and led to this ultimate disaster. We forget that Obama was elected twice to get the economy out of free fall, and we forget that he succeeded.
The greatest economy America had was during World War II and the years after. There was a massive war that needed massive production, but we no longer have a massive war to do the same.
After the war, millions of soldiers came home to the Montgomery GI Bill, and spent the remaining half of the 1940s getting educated, and then becoming the inventors, innovators, and thinkers of the 1950s. We do not have a massive war or so many soldiers to give free education. However, Clinton can find new endeavors to put our people to work. The war on coal does need to end, and with coal defeated. America does not need to manufacture products that it manufactured half-a-century ago.
Trump did not answer how he is going to bring the manufacturing jobs back because he can’t. They will never come back unless the minimum wage is removed, and labor cost are competitive with third world countries. Trump does not know economics. Trump only knows his business, and what his business needs to prosper. Luckily for other businesses, they see eye to eye because only go up and not everywhere.
America needs to invest in the smartest minds in creating the greatest and cleanest energy sources the world has ever seen. America may not manufacture cheap products, but we manufacture software and newest technologies. By investing in education, we can create a generation that pursue this new ideas without having to be weighed down by student loan debt. This method worked, and this is how America became a superpower.
By the same token, TAMIU students who were very supportive of Sanders must understand that Sanders’ progressive agenda is on the Democratic platform. Trump does not care about providing affordabe education. It wouldn’t be surprising if financial aid funding was redirected to fund his obscene border wall. Trump has no love for the Hispanic community, and seems to prefer having Laredo turn into a military fortress before increasing funding for education.
By endorsing Hillary Clinton, we understand that America has an image to present to the world. The world needs a successfully and heroic image of democracy because democracy is under attack in different parts of the world. Radical and right-wing politics are being accepted in different corners of the world. We see it in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines, and even the United Kingdom. Democracy is being shamed like it did in the 1930s, and the world needs to remember that the government of John Locke is still the government that world must embrace. We have prevailed before. All out former enemies, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, have embraced our form of government. This government, the one that formed the United Nations, put a man on the moon, and prevailed against communism, must be preserved and prosperous. Trump has shown time and again that he has no respect towards the progress the world has made since 1945.
We are the founders of the modern democracy, and we cannot allow to fail. A man who praises the enemies of democracy should be nowhere to our government. For our country, for our future, for our children, Hillary Clinton must be the next president.
