# Trump vs. Clinton: worst choice for President ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 11, 2016, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692 "2016-03-11T21:28:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/181 "2016-03-23T04:55:38Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > See post #159. And, see it again. And again. Memorize it, and recite it before, or better yet instead of, your nightly prayers. They won’t die in our streets. They will go back to their home countries, where their citizenship entitles them to all the benefits their country has to offer. Mexico has universal health care. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/182 "2016-03-23T04:57:00Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > From whence are you deriving the second part of that (“if you’re not, then you’re someone else’s problem”)? > > As a corollary, the United States grants citizenship to those born on American soil, but that doesn’t mean that people born abroad can’t be citizens (even natural-born citizens–cf. Cruz and McCain). But it does mean that who is and is not an American is decided by our laws, not by whether or not you were clever enough to evade the Border patrol. “Too slow? Mexican. Fast? American.” As for the second part, if I travel to another country and get arrested for obvious political reasons, what will my country do to gain my release? What policies does the US have in 2016 to deter such acts? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/183 "2016-03-23T05:18:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > They won’t die in our streets. They will go back to their home countries, where their citizenship entitles them to all the benefits their country has to offer. Mexico has universal health care. There was a time that I was the only undocumented in my family. Fleeing the civil war most of us managed to come with legal visas, but for a few years before the Amnesty and Nacara laws the company I worked for took taxes from my salary and I never got any benefits. One day in the 80’s I managed to barely survive a very fast and nasty and bloody gastrointestinal disease; I had no doctor and by the time I had managed to get back to the old country it would had been too late anyhow. When you are very sick many times you can not think straight also, and back then in my youth I realized that I would be only a burden if I had come out and seek help and risked being deported, with no family to get back in the old country. Better to die then if that was my destiny then. Things happen for reason though, and right now it is clear that one of the reasons I survived was to tell you now and many conservatives out there that the point in your post was a very rotten one. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/184 "2016-03-23T05:33:29Z")
I have not met a single liberal who says we should just let Americans overseas rot. We have regularly worked to make exchanges if they are illegally imprisoned. I don’t know why you think not making life worse for the illegal immigrants who are already here has anything to do with not helping Americans abroad. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/185 "2016-03-23T13:07:10Z")
Back to the topic of this thread (which I think was contract bridge as played by Tenzig Norgay), Donald Trump had an extended interview with the Washington Post, transcript and video here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board/) Among a particularly incoherent word salad, The Donald wants to cut our spending on NATO and our military bases in the Pacific, if not eliminate both. PRC President Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin must be dancing happy dances at this prospect. I am not an interventionist, but if the US pulls back from the world there will be many bad consequences. Sure, HRC has more issues than National Geographic, but at least she knows better than to make a change like that, and better than to make a change like that in an off-the-cuff remark with zero consultation with staff, cabinet, legislators, or allies. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/186 "2016-03-23T17:29:15Z")
And that gets to the core of why Clinton is a better candidate than Trump. One of her bugs that might actually be a feature is her unwillingness to buck public opinion. I do believe that pretty much all the promises she’s made to the liberal base will be abandoned once she gets into office. Not because she doesn’t believe as they do, but because she wants to be effective. Or at least it’s a feature when you consider that the alternative is someone as erratic and incautious as Donald Trump. ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/187 "2016-03-23T17:39:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > They won’t die in our streets. They will go back to their home countries, where their citizenship entitles them to all the benefits their country has to offer. Mexico has universal health care. Mexico does not have universal health care. You should get your facts straight. We have government run health care programs. American retirees that are non-citizens can buy coverage at very low cost. And many do. Some even subscribe to the _Seguro Popular_ coverage which was started with the idea of providing health care to the very poor at very little to no cost. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/188 "2016-03-23T17:47:00Z")
You are mistaken. Mexico does not have single payer, but they do have universal health care: > **[Mexico achieves universal health coverage, enrolls 52.6 million people in...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/mexico-universal-health/)** > > August 15, 2012 — Despite periods of economic downturns and crisis, Mexico recently achieved a significant milestone – enrolling 52.6 million previously uninsured Mexicans in public medical i… ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/189 "2016-03-23T18:24:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As for the second part, if I travel to another country and get arrested for obvious political reasons, what will my country do to gain my release? What policies does the US have in 2016 to deter such acts? The prisoner trade with Iran, concluded just this past January, was the culmination of more than a year of negotiations, and Secretary Kerry has indicated the final deal was connected with the nuclear agreement with Iran. To get those people home, we commuted the sentences of eight Iranian or Iranian-American nationals in U.S. prisons and deported them back to Teheran, and then agreed not to seek the extradition of other Iranians charged with crimes here. Does that count as “doing something”? The Daniloff affair in the 1980s wasn’t some great victory of the U.S.–in order to get him home, the U.S. had to give up Gennadi Zakharov, a Soviet working at the U.N. in New York, who had been arrested by the feds a few weeks earlier in an undercover espionage sting. Most observers thought Daniloff had been arrested in reprisal, and that the whole reason for his arrest was to have a bargaining chip to get Zakharov back; if that was the Soviet plan, it worked. When you have a motivated party on the other side of the negotiating table, it’s not impossible to come up with an agreement. We don’t have a lot of leverage over the North Koreans, e.g., and they aren’t particularly motivated to come to terms with the enemy they’ve been demonizing for more than half a century, so travelers go to Pyongyang with the understanding that if they get arrested, there may not be a whole lot the Americans can do, but the U.S. will try to do what they can as they can. A dozen or so Americans have been arrested in DPRK in the past two decades; we’ve gotten most of them home. For example, in 2009 two American journalists were arrested for illegal entry into North Korea; they were sent home after the husband of the then-serving Secretary of State made a “private” visit to Pyongyang. ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/190 "2016-03-23T18:56:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You are mistaken. Mexico does not have single payer, but they do have universal health care: > > [Mexico achieves universal health coverage, enrolls 52.6 million people in less than a decade | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/mexico-universal-health/) I am Mexican. I am well aware of the health care system in my country. The people quoted in the article were career PAN bureaucrats and political appointees. They had a clear agenda in promoting the system for political purposes. Their claims differ vastly from reality. What the article doesn’t state is that sufficient funding for these programs was never allocated. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/191 "2016-03-23T19:04:56Z")
Give \*\*adaher \*\*a break. If he’s not wrong about something every 30 minutes or so he gets the jimmy-legs. Makes him crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/192 "2016-03-23T19:20:35Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I have not met a single liberal who says we should just let Americans overseas rot. We have regularly worked to make exchanges if they are illegally imprisoned. > > I don’t know why you think not making life worse for the illegal immigrants who are already here has anything to do with not helping Americans abroad. Adaher doesn’t care about that stuff. He wants cruise missiles to rain down on the heads of those that cast glances askew at the flag. Or at least that’s the impression I’m getting. Perhaps he would care to disabuse me of what he meant? His position is utter nonsense and has no comport with observed reality. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/193 "2016-03-23T19:33:53Z")
Only after he finds out what Obama is doing, so he can oppose it. He’ll be the same with HRC, no doubt. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/194 "2016-03-24T15:43:15Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What’s changed is that there are no longer consequences for mistreating Americans. Being able to contact your embassy is costless. Threatening to hit a state in the pocket book for jailing Americans unjustly seems to be off the table these days. Remember when the Soviets jailed Nicholas Daniloff? It created a diplomatic crisis. And it should have. Jailing Americans without cause SHOULD be cause for a diplomatic crisis. I’m never sure just what you’re nattering on about. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/195 "2016-03-24T16:25:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Now if this was a clear cut choice between “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” vs. a return to Clintonism, that would be something. I am optimistic about future election choices if the current trend continues (i.e. the GOP crashes and burns) and leads to the historically typical aftermath (i.e. a new party alignment arises from “Third Way” and “Progressive” factions of the current Democratic Party). ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/196 "2016-03-24T16:26:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > American people overseas are no longer our problem. I thought that the Republicans were all about caring for our troops, even when they’re overseas. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/197 "2016-03-24T16:28:48Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I’m never sure just what you’re nattering on about. That’s okay, neither is he, apparently. If “Clintonism” means peace and prosperity, with the Fed chairman warning about “irrational exuberance”, then that isn’t a bad thing for the Dems to stand for, now is it? ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/198 "2016-03-24T17:19:48Z")
I think [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnN_JoIBkzw) sums up the next 4-8 years quite nicely. ---
**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/199 "2016-04-02T01:01:06Z")
No its not the worst or most boring two choices. Trump is not boring certainly. Now if it were Hillary Clinton against Ted Cruz, that would be one awful election choice. Hillary sucks overall putting side her name recognition and experience, and Ted Cruz may seem more “presidential” to the establishment hacks than Donald Trump, but he is scary and awful. A real lunatic. On the flip side, Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump would be perhaps the most exciting and best two choices America could have. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692/200 "2016-04-02T02:39:03Z")
> [@Nema98](#): > > On the flip side, Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump would be perhaps the most exciting and best two choices America could have. Hmm…a guy who won’t get anything done vs. a guy who would rather just bomb the whole thing because he’s Yuge and knows it all. Yeah I sure relish that choice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-clinton-worst-choice-for-president-ever/748692.md?page=11)