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Niles North High School | Skokie, IL

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Niles North High School | Skokie, IL

North Star News

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Clinton: 3 | Trump: 1 | America: 0

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David Goldman | AP

As I slowly realize that America is falling into a deep, dark pool of despair, I have decided to not only pay more attention to the presidential election, but also to voice my opinion about the burden that’s about to hit our country in less than two months.

At the beginning of this years election, I was and still am a very strong Bernie supporter. I was definitely ‘Feelin the Bern’, so you can probably guess how upset I was when Sanders was not named the Democratic nominee, and even more astounded by the fact that Donald Trump was voted as the republican nominee. But, even with my raging anger at America, I decided to still keep following the election and dispose of my preconception that democrats had all the answers for America’s problems.

Going into Monday’s debate, I had some very strong feelings that I would be triggered by the arrogance and ignorance of both parties. Even though this years election isn’t something that I wish to participate in due to the fact that, in my opinion, both presidential candidates are not stable enough to be running one of the world’s most powerful countries, I still think that one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and at least attempt to change some minds and restore some of my faith in humanity before the blood battle between the candidates gets serious.

The debate started off with a segment called “Achieving Prosperity,” a segment devoted to talking about the inequalities that citizens face in the workforce.

Hillary Clinton started the discussion off. She was asked why she is a better choice than her opponent (Trump) to create the kinds of jobs to put more money in the pockets of American workers. She responded by saying that the government must build an economy that is suitable enough to all citizens and not just those at the top of the economic food chain. What does this mean to Secretary Clinton? This simply means creating newer and better jobs in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean renewable energy and small businesses that establish rising incomes. She wants to invest in us, the people, and our futures. Clinton went on to say that we must make the economy more fair which starts with raising the minimum wage, and guaranteeing equal pay for women. She wants Americans to be more centralized around the idea of family, and wants to help citizens who struggle in finding a balance between family and work by providing workers with paid family leave, earned sick days, affordable child care and debt free college. How does she hope to accomplish this, you may ask? By having the wealthy pay their share and closing the corporate loopholes. After she was done speaking about this issue, she asked viewers this question: “Who can shoulder the immense, awesome responsibilities of the presidency? Who can put into action the plans that will make your life better?”

Now Trump. He was asked the same question, and started off by saying that our jobs are fleeing the country. He then proceeded to say that countries like China are devaluing our currency and are using America as a piggy bank to restore their country. We are losing our jobs. We must stop our jobs from being taken over and our companies from leaving the United States. If elected president, Trump hopes to reduce taxes tremendously (35% to 15%, to be exact) for companies and small and big businesses.

My take on this segment of the debate? Hilary completely won me over. She had a more precise plan in mind and had obviously prepared for the debate. Trump on the other hand, not so much. You know when you don’t read the book and you have a graded in-class discussion and all you say is “I agree with …”? That’s kind of what Trump was saying. For most of his points, he kind of just fed off Clinton’s answers.

Clinton: 1 Trump: 0

As the debate went on, we found that truly, Hillary Clinton overpowered Donald Trump in the first presidential debate because we witnessed the Republican nominee stumbling over his words and spending most of the night on his heels.

Although it is a popular belief that Trump will be a more “cool”, laid back, and a more “presidential” fit for office, it was noticed that his agitation rate was through the roofs. He repeatedly interrupted Clinton and raised his voice. After the first blow, he had set the tone for the debate, and it wasn’t a very great one.

Tensions reached an ultimate high when Clinton asked the audience to visit her website, and Trump responded by stating that General Douglas MacArthur would not approve of Clinton’s post regarding her plan to defeat ISIS.

“You’re telling the enemy everything you want to do,” Trump said.

The one thing that I have to say about this argument is that as President of the United States, it is much wiser if you try to keep calm and cool instead of raising your voice like Trump has, not only during this debate, but also during many other occasions. If he is being careless enough to be yelling during a presidential debate, imagine the carelessness he is going to have during meetings with other leaders.

Clinton: 2 Trump: 0

One thing that really bugged me and kind of surprised me was that when the candidates were asked about issues regarding race, neither Clinton nor Trump had anything to say about the Black Lives Matter movement. This, to me and many others, is such an important movement and the fact that nothing was said about it kind of left me disinterested in this part of the debate. However, going further into the recent issues with race, Clinton accused Trump of having “a long record of engaging in racist behavior”, after multiple clashes between the two parties. Clinton was referring back to Trump’s 1973 Department of Justice lawsuit accusing him of discrimination for not renting apartments to black people. Trump dismissed Clinton’s statement and went on to say that there were many companies involved in the lawsuit and that he settled without admitting guilt. Trump then went on to praise himself for opening up a night club in Palm Beach, Florida that did not discriminate against anyone.

Personally, I believe that opening up a night club that isn’t discriminatory is not that big of a deal due to the fact that we live in America and it is the 21st century. Is there something deeper about this case that we must look into? Is Trump praising himself because it was hard for him to open a non-discriminatory night club in 21st Century America?

In light of both candidates dodging the BLM issue, the score remains Clinton: 2, Trump: 0

Furthermore, Trump defended the stop-and-frisk, the controversial policing policy that a court ruled unconstitutional when used in New York City. Trump called it “tremendous beyond belief” and said other cities needed to adopt it in order to implement “law and order,” but is a controversial policy like stop-and-frisk really appropriate for this country’s police force, after everything that’s been happening? We see cases like Dylan Noble, Korryn Gaines, Tyre King, where unarmed, non-violent African American citizens are being shot due to a misconception that they are always doing something wrong. So, we must ask ourselves, why would stop-and-frisk ever be acceptable in a country where people of color are three times more likely to be arrested or incarcerated? There cannot be “law and order” if there is no order in our police system. (For more info on police violence, visit this link.)

One of the main points that was brought up during the debate was the issue of Obama’s birth certificate and the fact that Trump had repeatedly accused of him of not being a natural born US citizen. So, after five years of raising doubt on the topic, Trump finally decided to give in but gave no explanation as to why he finally changed his mind.

Besides completely ignoring instead of accepting the very simple fact that he was wrong, he actually blamed Clinton for starting the rumor and praised himself for forcing Obama to produce his birth certificate.

“Let’s take a closer look at that birth certificate. @BarackObama was described in 2003 as being “born in Kenya,” Trump tweeted on May 18, 2012.

March 30, 2011: Trump says on The O’Reilly Factor, “If you are going to be president of the United States you have to be born in this country. And there is a doubt as to whether or not he was. … He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”

These are just some prime examples of Trump supporting the “birther movement.” Why he has suddenly decided to change his mind and put the blame on Hillary is way beyond reason, but I ask you, the readers, this question: Do we want our next president to be a profound liar? If he’s lying about something like this, he’s bound to hit again. Big things stem from small things.

This is an easy one. Truthful Candidate > Lying Candidate.

Clinton: 3 Trump: 0

Another issue that was touched on at the beginning of the debate was Trump’s statement regarding Hillary Clinton’s looks. When Holt asked Trump to speak further on his comment, he stated that Clinton simply does not have the stamina to be president of the United States. In some way, I do agree with this point because there have been many instances where Clinton has fainted; one of the instances actually being a couple weeks ago when she had left the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at Ground Zero in Manhattan, stating that she had started to feel “faint”.

So, in the case of physical ability, Trump definitely has my vote.

Clinton: 3 Trump: 1

Personally, I believe that this is by far, one of the most difficult, but easy decisions that America will make only because of the fact that both candidates touch on certain issues with a special vibe of their own. However, one thing that we must remember is this:

The media is everything. Depending on what website you’re on, what channel you’re watching, you are bound to hear some very biased information. Hillary Clinton’s health incident at the 9/11 memorial was viewed as “unprofessional” and “disrespectful” only because people did not have all the facts and the media chose to portray her in that manner because that she is a woman. The facts were laid out in front of us when her campaign directors revealed that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. But again, the media chooses what to and what not to publish.

Donald Trump, on one hand chooses to at times make himself look bad. But other times, even though he gets wall-to-wall coverage, it is definitely negative 95% of the time. The media is definitely increasingly biased against Trump. He really is getting different, harsher treatment than any candidate in memory. Whether you think that he deserves it is one thing, but there are rules within traditional political reporting operations about how you cover presidential candidates.

So who won the Monday debate? In my eyes, Hillary Clinton.

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Clinton: 3 | Trump: 1 | America: 0