Editorial: Vote for Hillary Clinton

The News-Letter officially endorses Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. We believe Clinton’s vast experience and sane policies make her a qualified candidate for President. Our endorsement stems from the belief that Clinton’s strengths make her not merely a better option than Donald Trump, but a strong candidate for the office in her own right.

Clinton has more experience in different levels of government than many of our past presidents. After serving as the First Lady while her husband held the presidential office, Clinton returned to politics. She served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and had previously served as a United States Senator representing New York from 2001. Clinton knows more about what the Presidency entails than her opponents.

Clinton’s views on foreign policy reflect those of the American mainstream from the last 30 years. From her time as Secretary of State, Clinton knows how to interact with foreign leaders and will be adept at conducting complex international negotiations.

She will definitely represent the interests of the United States when making tough calls. She will stand up to autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who threaten our allies.

Clinton is undeniably hawkish on foreign policy, as her term as Secretary of State showed. We call on Clinton to only use the United States’ military might with discretion. The conflicts of the last 15 years show that regime change and invasion rarely create peace. Working together with our allies, Clinton should reevaluate the military’s drone program, which has killed countless civilians throughout the Middle East. These people are not just “collateral damage.”

But Clinton has a history of flip-flopping on policies that affect millions of Americans. She has previously called young black men “superpredators” and has reversed her position on the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), which she previously called the “gold standard” for trade deals. But the Editorial Board recognizes that, like most Americans, politicians’ view change, too.

The policies that she has run on have been her most progressive yet, undoubtedly pressured by the grassroots campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders.

Clinton has voiced her support for creating a streamlined path for undocumented immigrants to become citizens. We wish her luck in forming policies that put undocumented immigrants and their American children first. They serve as a backbone for our economy, and they deserve the same protections that documented immigrants receive. Labor exploitation of undocumented Latino immigrants is a real problem in the United States, and we hope that Clinton enacts strong policies to enable these workers to maintain a decent standard of living.

Clinton supports bringing more refugees, especially Syrians, to our country than under the Obama administration. The current vetting system for potential refugees, one of the most rigorous in the world, will ensure that these people will be no threat to the United States.

She has also expressed support for criminal justice reform and amending our current policies that engender mass incarceration. DeRay Mckesson, a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement, recently spoke at Hopkins as part of the MSE Symposium, and he talked about how Clinton sat down with representatives from Black Lives Matter to discuss how to work better with the movement to address systemic racism. The Editorial Board hopes that she continues to work closely with movement leaders to enact more positive change, especially when it comes to mass incarceration, a major problem in our city of Baltimore.

Clinton understands that facts are facts, unlike her Republican opponent. She knows that climate change exists and is not hoax created by the Chinese to cripple American business. Climate change is threat to the very existence of human society, and while Clinton has not been the most aggressive on climate, she understands that American leadership will be necessary for any major international climate agreement.

Clinton supports profit sharing, where corporations that earn more than their expectations over the fiscal period would be required to share the extra profits among all its employees. This policy incentivizes productivity among workers and gives them more input in the corporation, as well as potentially providing a way to reduce income inequality.

Wealthy oligarchs control much of American politics and business, and Clinton’s profit sharing policy could empower working and middle class communities.

Clinton is forward thinking on LGBT+ rights, and she has been a strong voice for women’s rights. She supports Planned Parenthood and abortion rights. Despite having changed many of her opinions over her time in public office, her convictions concerning women’s and children’s rights have been strong and consistent.

While we endorse Clinton for many reasons, we must acknowledge her faults. Concerning the email scandal from her time as Secretary of State, FBI Director James Comey’s recent announcement of the discovery of more emails without concrete evidence of malpractice made a mockery of our justice system. Comey misled voters by making a political move as leader of a  nonpolitical organization. Clinton should be held accountable for her actions in this scandal, but she has already been investigated, and this should no longer be a serious topic of conversation.

Many critics also refuse to vote for Clinton because they don’t like her husband. Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are two separate people with individual opinions, and Hillary Clinton has made her stances especially clear when they differ from her husband’s. She should not be held accountable for her husband’s indiscretions.

Overall, Hillary Clinton is the clear choice for the office of the President of the United States. She has years of political experience, she is not afraid to court controversy, and she will make decisions with the best interests of the American people at heart. Hillary Clinton is a solid choice for President — not just the lesser of two evils.