Thursday, October 13, 2016

Salt Lake Tribune Endorses Hillary Clinton


OMG!  Get me some smelling salts!  I never thought I'd see the day where the Salt Lake Tribune would endorse a Democrat, much less than Hillary Clinton.  The fact that the Salt Lake Tribune in Mormon heavy Utah is endorsing Clinton speaks volumes about the toxicity of Donald Trump and the danger he poses for America - and the world at large.  Simply put, Trump is unfit for elected office - any political office.  Here are highlights from the Tribune's endorsement:
It has been amusing, to a degree, to watch the circus that was the Republican primary process struggle and fuss and finally produce such a disappointment to be its presidential nominee.
And there is no question that there are many Americans who feel lost and confused about a world that, in their eyes, has left them behind. Significant numbers of people have expressed a desire to blow up the system and start over. Or, more accurately, to pull America back to a day that was special only in that it placed white males alone at the top of the power pyramid.
But now the ballots have been printed and are arriving in Utah mailboxes. It is time to make a reasonable, considerate, realistic vote for president of the United States.
This election presents the two most unpopular candidates in recent history. One has developed a reputation for secrecy and dishonesty. The other built a campaign on insults and bigoted statements, finally losing any right to be taken seriously with the recent release of a video in which he was heard to brag about his ability to get away with sexually assaulting women.
There is certainly not a perfect choice but, at this point, the only candidate who comes close to being qualified and fit for the post is Hillary Clinton.
She has shown that she is tough, yet able and willing to reach out to politicians to her left and her right in order to get things done.
Her secret plan to reform health care in America during her husband's administration fell incompetently apart. But she learned from that experience and later worked across party lines to extend health insurance to millions of children.
Clinton's devotion to making the world a better place for the less fortunate, especially children, has been the core of her whole career. She sees the threats of terror abroad, gun violence at home and climate change globally and has plans to address all of that, and more.
She would make tax policy more equitable and work to help the poor climb out of their misery.
She has stood up for religious freedom around the world, even in dealing with regimes such as China, where it was a risky position to take.
The fact that she would be the first woman to hold that post is a bonus. It would be a signal to young women in this nation, and around the world, that the toughest glass ceiling there is has finally been shattered.
Yes, there are flaws and concerns, as there would be with anyone who has danced in the minefield of public life for 40 years. Clinton can be disturbingly secretive and has made a few big errors . . . . FBI says it has cleared her of any criminal wrongdoing and she has repeatedly admitted that she was wrong to leave all that sensitive information in such a vulnerable spot.
[A]s it played out, his [Trump's] entire campaign was based on divisive, bigoted and insulting rhetoric. On lies about how bad things are. On a promise to fix things by basically being a dictator. It was all designed to inflame a vocal minority of us who haven't adjusted to the fact that the America where white males brought home the bacon from secure factory jobs — and didn't have to deal with a globe of different ethnic backgrounds — is gone for good.
[A] President Clinton and the leaders of Congress, even if it remains in Republican hands, can get past eight years of gridlock and work together to make the hard choices that lie ahead.
Utah Republicans were perceptive enough to reject Trump in their March presidential caucus voting. Were they to support Clinton now, even by the narrowest of pluralities, it would send a strong message to the Republican Party to turn their backs on Trumpism and to work with Clinton where they can, rather than devote themselves to blocking her every move.
Wow! To quote an old song from my younger days, I felt the earth move under my feet.  Remarkable. It would seem that Mormons in Utah have far more moral decency and integrity than the professional Christian set and the hard core Christofascists. 

No comments: