Elias Atienza is a history freshman. The views expressed in letters to the editor do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints or editorial coverage of Mustang News.
“Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil.” -Jerry Garcia
Despite winning the last seven of eight primaries and looking to win more, Bernie Sanders will not be your Democratic presidential nominee. The delegate math is against him and it seems like he cannot bank on California to make it a contested convention in July. I wish him the best of luck, because as bad as he is, he doesn’t approach how horrible Hillary Clinton is.
When I was out tabling with the Cal Poly College Republicans last week, we asked students a simple question: Trump or Clinton? The response from the 150 people we “polled” was approximately 10 or so people enthusiastic about their candidates — whether it was Trump or Clinton — and the rest wanted either a third-party option or chose one of the two with pained looks in their eyes.
Let’s not mince words. Both candidates are horrible. Both of them are dishonest and willing to do anything to win.
Trump’s presidential campaign has been centered on blaming illegal immigrants for much of our problems, banning Muslims and promising to build a wall across our southern border. Occasionally he says something sensible, such as opposing the war in Iraq and having a relatively non-interventionist foreign policy. But then he says something stupid such as saying nukes aren’t off the table in Europe and praising a certain Russian president who is responsible for violating basic human rights.
Clinton’s presidential campaign has been built on being a shallower version of Sanders. She wants us to be a half-assed version of Sweden or Denmark, instead of going full Denmark like Sanders wants. She’s riding the subway, even if she doesn’t know how to swipe her card. At least she knows how to get on the subway, unlike Sanders (who still thought tokens were used instead of a card.)
Clinton doesn’t know what to do. She’s relying on the polls for what to be next. She’s pretending to be as non-interventionist as Sanders, while also still defending her disastrous war in Libya and her vote for the Iraq War. Let’s not forget she wanted to arm certain … “moderate” rebel groups in Syria who ended up to be violent jihadists bent on destroying the West after they destroyed the Assad regime. She has called for more surveillance in the aftermath of the Brussels attacks even though evidence shows that mass surveillance doesn’t work. And she was the one who articulated the infamous reset with Russia, which did nothing but make her and President Barack Obama feel better.
Let’s not forget her and Trump’s plan to somehow shut down the Internet.
And we’re not even going into the reasons why conservatives hate her. (Summed up in two words: emails and Benghazi.)
I’ve already said my part in how terrible Trump is in two different letters to the editor.
But, you may be asking, who should I vote for? The pantsuit-wearing megalomaniac or the orange-haired megalomaniac? Both of them are terrible, but one has to be less terrible than the other, right?
That’s an incorrect answer, but a sensible one. Americans have been playing into the two-party system for the past 220 years. Ever since George Washington left office, we have had two political parties: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans; Democrats and Whigs; Democrats and Republicans.
But don’t limit yourself to the lesser of two evils.
There’s always a different choice.
Gary Johnson is most likely going to be Libertarian Party nominee. I’m supporting someone else, but they only have a long shot at the nomination, so I’ll most likely be voting for Johnson in the general election.
Johnson is the former two-term governor of New Mexico. He’s a former Republican and is far better than Sanders, Clinton and Trump. He’s socially liberal and fiscally conservative, which I suspect many people are here on campus. He’s not in favor of building a wall, didn’t support the Iraq War and doesn’t want to nuke the Middle East or Europe. He’s sensible and knows what he’s doing, instead of espousing nonsense like Trump, and he’s pretty honest unlike Clinton. Plus he doesn’t have an insane tax plan like Sanders.
He has a sensible plan for dealing with ISIS that doesn’t call for tens of thousands of ground troops or a no-fly zone. Johnson recognizes the threat ISIS and other radical Islamist terrorist groups pose, but he’s not going to take away our civil liberties and realizes that years of U.S. intervention in the Middle East has made us less safe.
Plus he called Donald Trump a pussy. He’s not afraid to mix it up, and even if he does look scared half of the time on a debate stage, he knows what the hell he’s talking about. He might be soft-spoken, but the man can rouse up a crowd.
So in a world where your two choices are Trump or Clinton, choose Johnson.
These views do not represent Young Americans for Liberty or Cal Poly College Republicans.
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