Why vote for Hillary?

I was recently asked why I decided to support Hillary Clinton this election. To note, I'll include a lot of links in this post, mostly to Wikipedia sites so you can get a basic overview of what I'm talking about, in case you're interested. And I'll also add a disclaimer: Look at the title of the freaking post, of course I'm biased toward her. But I try to be reasonable too.

I'm among the age demographic that is by far least likely to vote, and many of my peers seem to care little about following politics/current events. So first of all, I want to address this:

Why should I care about politics?

I believe it’s super important to be politically informed for a number of reasons and through a number of lenses:

1. (As a person) It affects us!  Policies affect our taxes, schools, roads, and the public services available to us (among many other things).

2. (As an average, lower-middle class American) Smart, rich, powerful people (and mostly men) control our political system to their advantage because they are informed about the issues and what will benefit them and their companies most, and they wield their influence and money to elect people who will do those things.  If more every-day people from the middle and lower class start staying informed about politics--local, state, and federal--and getting involved with their voices and even running for offices, then I believe our communities, our country, and the world will be a better place.

3. (As a woman) The country has been run by men for literally centuries.  This is certainly not inherently bad.  I’m not against good male leadership, BUT when ONLY men are making decisions about a country of which half the population are women, sometimes those decisions do not take into account how that will affect the lives of women and families.  When women are involved in politics--whether by staying informed and contacting representatives to share their views, running for and serving in office, or any other kind of involvement--better decisions are made because the contributing discussion has a wider range of perspectives.

4. Besides, being politically involved is empowering and fun.  I love using my voice as a constituent to tell my senators and representatives what issues matter to me (find your elected officials here).  They are supposed to represent me, so I’d better tell them what I think.  Plus, most people don’t, so it gives me power. Muahahaha.

Full disclosure, I’m still working on being a better local citizen.  I tend to think more nationally and globally. Next I want to touch on the importance of being rational, particularly when it comes to politics:

Levelheadedness in Political Support

I’ve put a decent amount of effort into being politically informed, and I’ve realized that VERY few people have the time to know even close to everything about candidates, issues, government, etc.  I don’t.  And yet, we have this human tendency to, after we’ve decided on something, stick to it no matter what evidence comes up against that stance/decision.  Any evidence against what we’ve decided, we find a way to rationalize away.  This is a real phenomenon called Confirmation Bias that you learn about in any intro Psych class.  It’s completely irrational, and almost everyone gets caught in that trap.  I do.  But being aware of the trap gives you some tools that you can use to escape it.  And you can escape the trap while standing by your decision.  I still have to try really hard not to be unquestioningly all-in on Hillary just because I’ve decided to and I’ve literally put money on it by donating to her campaign.  I try my best to weigh all the issues and be real and rational about it, and there are some things I struggle with.  There are some things I disagree with her on (I’m not going to address those here because that’s not my purpose today).  And yet, still, I’m with her. (on team Hillary)

Why am I with Her?

My feelings as a whole are conflicted, because I want to be smart and realistic in weighing the accusations against her.  But I also feel immense enthusiasm about what a great president she would be.  And it’s definitely not just because she’s a woman.  I think it would be stupid to support a candidate with gender as an important factor.  Yes, as a whole I do want more women in leadership positions in every organization and on every level because I believe it is better for society and organizations.  But if the woman running were Sarah Palin or even Elizabeth Warren, I’m not sure I would support them or be as excited about their leadership in the role of President.

Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State is what sells me the most on her candidacy.  For one, I have an aunt that works for the State Department, and my aunt didn’t like Hillary Clinton before she came in, but after serving under her leadership for 4 years, my aunt thought Clinton ran the department well, and Clinton became my aunt’s 2nd favorite boss she’s had.  Having a personal reference made a difference in my decision.  Then, the more I learned about what she did as Secretary of State, the more impressed I was.  It’s a really complicated and demanding job.  The Secretary of State is the lead foreign diplomat in charge of negotiating with all other nations to make agreements that benefit both nations and keep world peace; he/she is also the top advisor to the President on foreign affairs; and the Public Relations Chair for the country; all among various other important and demanding responsibilities.  When a Secretary of State travels to other nations, it is a great honor, and they of course want to provide the highest treatment and best experiences, so the US will do things that benefit them.  Secretary Clinton also made sure, everywhere she went, to meet with local people, students, activists, to hear and give voice to their concerns in her discussions with their top leaders.  She also made human rights (particularly women’s rights) a part of her foreign negotiation.  She pressed nations for progress in their policies toward women, families, and children.  Beyond those things, she clearly works extremely well with other nations as a negotiator.  She negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine--that alone is miraculous.  She helped organize the first global meeting to address climate change.  She knows how to fight for her causes and for her people, while also negotiating with the other side so real progress can happen.

Related, as a Senator she was known for working with both republicans and democrats to get things done (like the State Children's Health Insurance Program).  It seems so often politicians are so stubborn and stuck to their party politics that they get literally nothing done.  So I want our next President to be a good negotiator who can work with people who are different than her and people who disagree with her, to come to compromises that benefit society.  

Really, she’s always been fighting for women, families, and children--since her early career (like with the Children's Defense Fund).  And that’s important to me.

The 3 Most Common Hillary Criticisms

I’ll address each of these from a few angles.

Criticism 1: She’s just not likeable.

1. She’s not a natural politician.  She’s great with policy, but policy speak doesn’t move people.  Inspirational, charismatic speeches and leaders do.  For example, Barack Obama is an incredibly charismatic and inspirational speaker and leader, so people love him.  The way I think of it?  Most politicians listen to people’s struggles and offer empathy--they’re able to listen and feel, and express it in a moving way.  Hillary is different.  Hillary definitely cares about people, and is good about listening and feeling, but I think as soon as she hears a problem, she’s thinking of how we can fix it.  She doesn’t just feel and share it in a moving way.  She starts talking about how we can fix it.  People like to feel and be moved, not just jump into policy like that, so they don’t like Hillary as much.  She’s a doer more than a speaker.  She’s not as exciting to listen to as Bernie Sanders or Barack Obama.  Not by a long shot.  But she works hard and works with others to bring about great results.  Not that the others can’t do that, but I think Hillary can do even better.

2. I think it’s a personality thing.  Part of me wonders if she’s on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum--genius level intelligence, but not a brilliant people person.  She’s paradoxical because she craves and highly values privacy--even secrecy--in her personal life, but she also craves and highly values public service.  This has caused her quite a bit of trouble.

3. Yet, this also makes her relatable to me.  It makes her seem more average, like me.  I feel like I’m socially awkward all the time.  I’m an introvert, but I love entertaining and serving others.  I feel empathy toward her that pulls me toward her side.  Really, I have this tendency to defend anyone being attacked.  I fight for the underdog.  It’s in my nature to defend.  But there’s so many other factors adding to this that pull me to her side.

Criticism 2: She’s a liar.  

This one is complicated.

1. Again, her value of privacy has erred on the side of secrecy and it looks really bad to the public and has gotten her in some trouble.  If you consider all she’s been through in the public’s scrutiny in her 40 years of public service, it’s not hard to imagine why she would instinctively be protective of her personal life and family.

2. Emails.

She’s in her 60’s. Both of my grandmothers are near that age, in their seventies.  My sister, Courtney, recently (on the phone) walked my grandmother through how to do a google hangout so they could see each other.  It took an hour to get setup and connected.  My grandmother could see and hear Courtney, but Courtney couldn’t hear or see my grandmother. 

Eventually, Courtney asked, “Grandma, does your computer have a camera?” “Well, I don’t see one.” “Does your computer have a microphone.”  “How would I know?” Her computer is a 10+ year old desktop, before cameras and microphones were built into computers.  And it took her over an hour to figure that out.

My other grandmother is regularly complaining about how “Google keeps changing her passwords.”

I ran a financial literacy program at work, and my program assistant was in her late sixties.  She’s very smart and capable, and fantastic with the clients.  But I had to type out step by step instructions for how to bookmark a page in the browser’s favorites bar.  I regularly got blank and partially completed emails from her.

Because of HIllary Clinton’s career and public service, she has a greater advantage than the women I know in the above examples, but still… She is in her 70’s.  I do not think it is plausible she could have intentionally done wrong or even intentionally broken email policies.

Besides, whenever she emailed anyone, in the 50+ thousand work related emails she sent or received as Secretary of State, her email address showed up as hdr22@clintonemail.com.  Why didn’t anyone say anything sooner if it was so wrong.  And how can they all claim they didn’t know?  I think no one realized it was a big deal until it blew up in their faces, and Hillary got burned from everyone’s (including her) mistake there.  

And then she had lawyers go through it to sort out her personal emails because of her privacy fetish, and they weren't thorough in their sorting, and deleted what was deemed personal, and that looks really bad.  I go back and forth on this one, because at the same time, I think she’s of genius-level intelligence.  So I feel like she had to have been aware of the deleting and the messy sorting process of her lawyers, and it all comes together looking really bad! And that’s sketchy.  It is.  And there were statements she made that turned out to be false--i.e. didn’t email classified info (she did).  I don’t know.

3. Benghazi--I really don’t know enough to comment, but congress spent months and months and millions of dollars investigating her (including the 11 hour interview pictured below) on this and concluded she did not bear any personal responsibility for what happened.  That’s enough for me.

Criticism 3: She’s corrupt.

1. Some claim that donations (particularly foreign) to the Clinton Foundation swayed her politically.  I haven’t seen convincing evidence of this.  The Clinton Foundation has a better nonprofit grade than Habitat for Humanity.  And Neither her nor Bill were involved with the foundation while she was Secretary of State.

2. In general, I am a raving optimist.

I believe, over all, the world is good, and people are good.  I believe society is changing for the better.  Worldwide, more and more people are educated and empowered.  Rates of poverty and disease as a whole are falling.  Because of the internet, everyone is exposed to different cultures and worldviews, so overall people are more tolerant and open-minded than ever before.  

But I’m not naive.  I know there is greed, pride, and power-hunger that still influence many leaders of states, nations, and corporations.  I know a lot of the world is driven by ego-centrism.

I’m positive that corruption still happens in our government, and in governments across the world.  I think a lot of politicians do shady stuff--sometimes for personal gain, but also to get things done because the political process can move so freaking slow.  I’m not saying it’s right.  You could get into a whole philosophical debate about that.  Moving on.

So, I definitely believe that Hillary cares about the American people, and advancing us as a nation.  No question there for me.  I'm not totally convinced that she is not at all corrupt. I don't think there are any politicians that are not at all corrupt. But I’m pretty sure she’s not corrupt in a way that hurts the nation.  If she did shady stuff, I think it would be to get things done.  And let’s be real, she’s not great at staying out of the negative spotlight like most politicians, so we’d probably figure it out anyway.

Conclusion

I’m writing this on my laptop.  On my laptop I have a campaign sticker that says, “I’m fighting for her. She’s fighting for me.”  I truly believe she will fight for the American people--to lesson corporate influence on politics, to take better care of our planet, to make college more affordable, to encourage companies to treat employees better, to make sure that Weston and I can have paid leave when we have children, to make sure that a young adult who makes a dumb mistake and is incarcerated can come out and have a full and complete life, etc.  AND that she has the skills and leadership to make great strides on those fronts.  And for me, that outweighs my concerns. But I'd love to hear your reasonable thoughts as well! Let's continue the discussion below!