Conflict in the Middle East

For the past several decades, America has been heavily involved in the conflicts in the Middle East.  Both major political parties have held pretty consistent stances on this topic, but many stances have unexpectedly shifted since the recent election.  Recent democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was criticized for being a ‘war hawk’ by many, but she ultimately had the support of most democratic voters.  She even recommended sending over 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, but most democrats supported her ideas.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump was praised by many republicans for his apparent views on noninterventionism.  These are not the most typical views for conservative republicans, but the right has seen a recent shift in opinion due to President Donald Trump.

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Last week, Assad’s regime in Syria used chemical weapons in vicious attacks on their own citizens.  The use of chemical weapons is heinous and condemned by the majority of the world, so there was a plethora of backlash from many other nations.  Americans in particular were disgusted by these actions.  Donald Trump took extreme action and sent 50 tomahawk missiles to the Syrian airbase that was responsible for the chemical attacks.  This action was in stark contrast to many of his claims of noninterventionism during the election cycle.  While many of the republican voters had conformed to Trump’s prior views, they quickly switched back to their conflictual opinions of old.  Donald Trump said that the images of the children hit by the chemical weapons changed his stance on the issue.  However, many democrats are criticizing his shift in opinion, and they are calling for him to stay out of the Middle Eastern conflicts.  After all, he was quoted just a month ago saying that “we will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.”  At the time, most of his constituents agreed.  He said this at one of his post-election rallies, and the statement was met with loud cheers from the voters.  Now that his position has changed, however, his constituents do not seem to mind.

Many democrats fiercely oppose Trump’s intervention in Syria, but these views do not align with those of their most recent presidential candidate.  Although most democratic voters were aware of her militaristic views towards the Middle East, they largely supported her and voted for her.  Michael Crowley from Times Magazine stated that “As Secretary of State, Clinton backed a bold escalation of the Afghanistan war. She pressed Obama to arm the Syrian rebels, and later endorsed airstrikes against the Assad regime. She backed intervention in Libya, and her State Department helped enable Obama’s expansion of lethal drone strikes. In fact, Clinton may have been the administration’s most reliable advocate for military action. On at least three crucial issues—Afghanistan, Libya, and the bin Laden raid—Clinton took a more aggressive line than [Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates, a Bush-appointed Republican.”  Interestingly, Clinton endorsed airstrikes against the Assad regime.  When Trump did the same thing, however, he was harshly criticized by the left.  Hillary Clinton even criticized Trump for “hypocrisy”, which is especially ironic because he did what many people think she would have done if she was president.  It seems as though the recent democratic presidential candidate and many of her constituents switched their views pretty rapidly.

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Republicans are not innocent either.  Many republicans heavily criticized Obama during his presidential term for his continuous militant acts.  According to The Atlantic, Obama was responsible for escalating the war in Afghanistan, ordering 250 drone attacks in Pakistan, sending troops to Libya, and many other militant actions.  While the majority of republicans disagreed with these measures that the former President was taking, they have taken a complete 180 on their views on this issue.  Recent Syrian government attacks, such as though that took place in Aleppo, have received international attention.  Assad and his army have been using force against his own citizens, and many of them have no way to escape.  While many people defend Assad’s actions by saying that he is just trying to take down ISIS, his attacks are often pointed at the wrong people.  Recently, he sent inhumane chemical weapons at his own people.  Disturbing images from the incident depict many Syrians, some of whom were young children, suffering from the attacks.  They were badly burned, their bodies were convulsing, and countless Syrians were left dead as a result.  Not only did this heinous attack kill many Syrians, it did not particularly hurt ISIS much at all.  Americans have been particularly sympathetic, and there had been many cries of action from both political parties.  When Trump took measures to the extreme, however, many people who formerly called him to act have retracted their statements.  Obviously, hypocrisy was blatantly present from both political parties in regard to the recent conflicts in the Middle East.

https://cdn.thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Bashar_al-Assad_in_Russia_2015-10-21_02-998×716.jpg

 

 

Supreme Court Controversy

On January 31st, 2017, Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.  His constituents were pleasantly surprised; Trump promised to nominate a conservative, but many voters were weary of that claim.  Trump said that Gorsuch “…has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline and has earned bipartisan support.”  He added that Gorsuch has “…an extraordinary résumé — as good as it gets.”  However, democrats are expectedly not as happy with Trump’s nominee.

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On March 16th, 2016, former President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.  The nomination would have restored a democratic majority on the Supreme Court, but Republicans strongly opposed it.  They sited the Thurmond Rule, which unofficially stated that a president should not nominate a Supreme Court justice within the last year of his or her presidency.  Therefore, republicans refused to confirm Judge Gorsuch, which led to heavy criticism from the left.  Democrats claimed that republicans were not doing their jobs and ignoring the demands of the Constitution.  Republicans claimed that they were just acting in the best interest of the American people, and that the upcoming election would put the issue to rest indefinitely.

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After Trump’s election, many opinions switched on this topic.  Republicans soon became eager to nominate and immediately confirm a Supreme Court justice, while democrats suddenly became in favor of delaying the nomination process.  Democrats were seemingly insistent on a 9-judge system last year, but now that a republican is president, many have switched to support an 8-judge system.  Such a system has not worked historically because almost every Supreme Court decision just comes to a 4-4 tie and is sent to lower courts.  This situation makes the Supreme Court practically useless, so each party has historically strived to have the majority of the Supreme Court.

Republicans have also suddenly changed opinions on the issue.  Many republicans were insistent on delaying the Supreme Court nomination under the Obama administration, but they are now impatiently waiting for their nominee to be approved.  While the circumstances of the nominations are slightly different, there is still a good bit of hypocrisy from each side.  Neither party nominated a TRULY moderate, nonpartisan judge to fill Scalia’s spot.  Scalia was a stout conservative who strictly interpreted the United States Constitution.  His passing led to a 4-4 tie within the Supreme Court between democrats and republicans.  Both parties had the opportunity to make a much fairer system by nominated someone who would see both sides of every argument, instead of just blindly siding with their political party.  This was not the case, however.  Merrick Garland was not an extremist by any means, but his opposition for 2nd Amendment rights left a bad taste in the mouth of many republicans.  Neil Gorsuch is not an extremist either, but his pro-life stance disappoints many democrats who wish to maintain the rulings of Roe v. Wade.

In each party’s credit, nonpartisan judges (or any government employee) are hard to come by.  In a highly polarized political society, everyone seems to pick a side and stick with it.  However, each party made their agendas very clear by picking judges who were not seen as nonpartisan in any manner.  Merrick Garland was probably slightly closer to nonpartisanship than Neil Gorsuch is, but they both undoubtedly side with one political party over the other.

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The democrats are ready to strongly oppose Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.  They claim to have enough votes to block Neil Gorsuch’s appointment, which has been met by much criticism from the republicans in government.  Ironically, democrats were not very happy with republicans when they were blocking Obama’s nominee.  Each political party has taken a complete 180 on their views of Supreme Court appointments within a few months.  The republicans, however, may be planning to do something that democrats never did; they may utilize a “nuclear option”.  This would allow the government to appoint Neil Gorsuch with a simple majority vote, which would easily be acquired since there are now more republicans in the White House than democrats.  While this option has been heavily criticized by democrats, many of them forget that former democratic majority leader Harry Reid did the same thing in 2013.  At the time, Reid was met with heavy criticism from republicans who claimed he was overstepping his power.  Democrats claimed that it was a sensical decision that sped up the nomination process.  However, the tides have obviously changed in 4 years, so opinions from both sides have changed as well.

The Supreme Court nomination process has brought out the hypocrisy from both democrats and republicans.  If either party would have just nominated a fair, moderate, nonpartisan official, this controversy would not exist.  Unfortunately, a desire for political dominance and uniformity has corrupted both parties, causing them to change their opinions in the blink of an eye.  It will be interesting to see how the nomination process plays out.

Privacy Concerns

Throughout the 2016 election cycle, many issues regarding the privacy of classified materials were very prevalent.  Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was constantly criticized by republicans for her use of a private email server.  Apparently, Hillary Clinton had been using an insecure email to access classified pieces of information.  This issue concerned many individuals who believed that this classified information could have easily ended up in the wrong hands due to Clinton’s perceived negligence.  The issue seemed to by dying down as the election approached, but when FBI Director James Comey reopened the investigation right before the election occurred, many undecided voters were reluctant to vote for a candidate who was under FBI investigation.  In fact, many people believe that the timing of this investigation was one of the main reasons why Clinton lost the election.  However, republicans insisted that this investigation was warranted and justifiable because the privacy of classified materials was very important to them.  On the other hand, many democrats felt as though this was not that big of a deal.  Bernie Sanders, who ran against Clinton in the democratic primaries, famously said during a debate that “…The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”  The remark was met with applause for the mostly democratic audience and relieved laughter from Hillary Clinton, but republicans were not as amused.  Republicans felt as though democrats were disregarding a grossly negligent action from Hillary Clinton that proved her to be unfit to run the country.

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However, the tables have certainly turned during the beginning of the Trump presidency.  The first switch in opinions came about when it was revealed that republican Vice President Mike Pence had conducted government business on a private email server before the election.  Apparently, Mike Pence had been sending and receiving classified government information from his AOL email account.  To make matters worse, it is believed that Mike Pence’s account may have been hacked during this time.  This development slipped under the radar during the election cycle, but now that the story has leaked, both parties have immediately switched their positions regarding the security of classified information.  Republicans have, for the most part, paid no mind to these reports.  This is rather hypocritical because their treatment of Hillary Clinton for very similar offenses was much different.  Democrats have also shown hypocrisy because, now that the offender is a republican, they are suddenly much more concerned about this issue.  Many of the same people that were “sick and tired” of hearing about Clinton’s emails demand to know more about Pence’s emails.  Obviously, the two parties displayed major ideological inconsistencies in regard to the separate email server scandals.

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Another recent development that has shown the hypocrisy of both parties regarding the security of classified information is the ongoing Mar-a-Lago scandal.  Donald Trump is a fan of all things luxurious, which explains why he spends most of his weekends at Mar-a-Lago, a private country club in south Florida.  Apparently, the country club has been transformed into a high-security ‘fortress‘ since Trump’s election, mainly because the owners want to ensure the president’s safety while he is spending time there.  However, Mar-a-Lago is still accessible to the public, which raises concerns amongst many onlookers.  This is especially troubling to many people because, if Trump is accessing private materials on insecure internet connection, his information may be vulnerable.  In fact, Donald Trump reportedly took a phone call while at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the imminent threat of North Korea’s nuclear programs.  Some pictures seem to depict Trump discussing these very sensitive matters while casually sitting at a dinner table surrounded by dozens of other people.  This is an obvious threat to the security of classified information, but both political parties have switched their opinions about it.  Republicans, many of whom relentlessly criticized Hillary Clinton for her inability to secure classified information, do not seem to think that this is a very big deal.  Democrats, many of whom thought that Hillary Clinton’s email scandal was not a very big deal, are now furious at Donald Trump for the exact same reasons.

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Politicians deal with classified materials every day.  If this material gets into the wrong hands, the security of our entire country can very easily be at risk.  Instead of switching back and forth between stances on this issue, Americans should mutually agree that national security comes first.  Regardless if a politician is a republican, democrat, libertarian, or independent, they should be trusted with the classified material that they receive because the safety of their constituents is at stake.  Hillary Clinton should not have used an insecure email server.  Mike Pence should not have had work-related conversations on his private email account.  Donald Trump should not be discussing North Korea’s nuclear advancements at a crowded dinner table.  The sooner that the American public can condemn members of their own party for negligence, the closer we are to becoming a safer and more unified nation.

Conflicts of Interest

Hypocrisy in politics never stops.  Whenever a certain stance becomes beneficial to a political party, they immediately take it.  In this post, we will examine each political party’s stance on conflicts of interest within politics.  Conflicts of interest within government occur when a government employee uses their position of power to promote something that may be profitable or beneficial to themselves.  Abuse of these powers has been universally condemned for most of American history; however, due to the current state of polarized politics, each side is willing to make exceptions to the rules.  Within the past 4 months, each side has taken stances on both sides of this argument, so we will examine just what caused their positions to switch.

 

The Clinton Foundation

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/07/politics/hillary-clinton-iowa-first-interview/

 

During the last several months of the presidential campaign cycle, democratic candidate Hillary Clinton came under a plethora of scrutiny for supposed conflicts of interest within the Clinton Foundation.  The Clinton Foundation is a charitable organization run by the Clintons that is supposed to donate money to philanthropic causes, but reports by the Associated Press caused people to doubt these seemingly beneficial intentions.  Since these reports were so close to the time of the election, many undecided voters were undoubtedly swayed by this occurrence.  According to reports, the Clinton Foundation was accepting money from parts of the world that the United States is in conflict with.  Many people speculated that the Clintons accepted these donations in return for political favors that would have been implemented had Clinton won the election.   Many of the donors for the foundation were listed as confidential, which raised the eyebrows of many individuals.  The Associated Press reported that over half of the donors met with Clinton while she was the Secretary of State, which would technically be violating rules related to conflicts of interest.  There were also rumors that the Clinton Foundation donated less of their proceeds to charity than they reported.  Some reports even stated that the Clinton Foundation’s lawyers thought that the classification of the organization as non-profit was very shady.  Republicans used this information as evidence that Hillary Clinton could not be trusted, and it most likely swayed many independent voters.  They claimed that, if Hillary could not run her charity without scandal and controversy, she could not run the country without similar issues.  At this point in time, it seemed as though republicans were much more concerned about conflicts of interest than democrats were.  For the most part, democrats saw this as a non-issue that republicans were inflating to draw negative attention to their candidates.  On the other hand, many republicans saw this as serious evidence towards the allegation that Hillary Clinton was not a trustworthy candidate for president of the United States.  This all changed, however, during Trump’s first few months of presidency.

 

 

Nordstrom Controversy

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-kellyanne-conway-hires-chief-of-staff-20170210-story.html

 

Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter, has been the center of much media attention lately after her clothing line was dropped by Nordstrom.  Many people speculate that, since her line of clothing was not necessarily underselling, Nordstrom’s intentions with this action were purely political.  In light of these actions by Nordstrom, several government officials have urged the public to buy Ivanka Trump’s clothing.  Kellyanne Conway, the top advisor to Donald Trump, told the public to “…go buy Ivanka’s stuff…” while on the air.  These statements, regardless of intention, completely violate conflict of interest rules in the White House.  She later apologized for these remarks, but the public was not so quick to forgive.  Many democrats called for Conway to be relieved of her duties for these remarks, while many republicans have stood behind these remarks.  They claim that, since Nordstrom’s reasons for dropping Ivanka’s clothesline may be unethical, these remarks are acceptable.  However, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the statements, Conway realized and apologized for her mistake.  Both political party’s stance on this argument is drastically different than their stances a mere 3 months ago, when republicans were attacking the Clintons for their supposed conflicts of interests.  Similarly, democrats were quick to defend their candidate, but they have been equally quick to condemn the Trump administration for similar allegations.  Both political parties completely switched their opinions on conflicts of interest when it became convenient for their party.  Were Nordstrom’s intentions questionable?  Most likely.  However, that does not excuse Kellyanne Conway or Donald Trump for their actions of promoting Ivanka Trump’s brand.  Were Clinton’s intentions when meeting with donors while Secretary of State malicious?  Probably not.  However, this does not excuse her irresponsible actions either.  Both sides were at fault, so both sides should take reasonable blame.  Instead, it becomes yet another polarizing and widely debate topic in the already-polarized world of politics.  Debates like these are unnecessary and unproductive because it seems as though neither side is completely invested in their side of the argument.  They are obviously willing to change their opinions pretty rapidly.

WikiLeaks Controversy

Everyone is a hypocrite.

The sooner people understand that, the sooner they can begin to look at politics from a nonpartisan point of view.  With so many topics and ideologies being constantly debated, hypocrisy is bound to happen.  Consistency in politics is a very rare occurrence.

America’s political polarization is at an all-time high, and it can be largely attributed to constant hypocrisy from both political parties.  Neither side is immune, and each is equally guilty.  Democrats and republicans each switch sides on popular issues in order to benefit themselves.  In this blog, I will identify and share examples of hypocrisy in American politics.  To ensure the utmost credibility, I will keep my personal political views completely private.

Hopefully, by realizing that both political parties act hypocritically, members from both sides can begin to converse open-mindedly and acceptingly.

 

WikiLeaks Controversy

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning)

 

WikiLeaks has come under undeniable scrutiny after it leaked the emails of John Podesta, former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.  The emails contained a plethora of information that was damaging to the Clinton campaign.  Some emails gave in depth descriptions of closed-door meetings that Clinton held with big banks, while others showed her team openly mocking political opponent Bernie Sanders.  Many individuals even believe that these leaked emails directly led to Clinton losing the 2016 election.  While many people directed their disgust at Clinton, others directed it at WikiLeaks.  Many democrats, including Clinton, openly critiqued and attacked WikiLeaks, referring to it as treasonous.  The Huffington Post claims that WikiLeaks is detrimental to society because it is “…holding government officials hostage to their words.”  Many even called for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, to be severely punished.  However, democrats’ treatment of Julian Assange is vastly different to that of Chelsea Manning.  Chelsea Manning was a former soldier who leaked classified military information to WikiLeaks.  Manning’s actions attracted nationwide attention to the whistleblower website, and she was arrested for aiding the enemy.  However, democrats have rallied behind Manning, calling to former President Barack Obama to pardon her.  On one of his last days in office, Obama did just that.  Democrats rejoiced, even though they supported Manning for the same reason that they despised Julian Assange.  While many democrats claimed that the majority of the information in Podesta’s emails was nonthreatening, it did reveal some inconsistencies and falsities within the Clinton campaign.  Democrats have also began to place heavy blame for Clinton’s downfall on Russia, who supposedly helped WikiLeaks acquire this information.  However, when Mitt Romney warned of the dangers of Russian interference in 2012, he was laughed at by democrats.  They thought that he was stuck in the days of the Cold War, and very few democrats took this remark seriously.  However, now that Russian interference has harmed Clinton’s campaign, their concern suddenly rose.  Certainly, the left’s treatment of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning displays undeniable hypocrisy.

(http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Julian_Assange)

On the other hand, republicans have not been so innocent either.  Republicans were almost universally against WikiLeaks and Chelsea Manning when the story originally unfolded in 2013.  They deemed her a traitor because the information she leaked ended up in the hands of many dangerous countries that America was in conflict with during the time.  They believed that Manning’s actions were a direct threat to national security.  Fox News’ Sean Hannity called for Chelsea Manning to be prosecuted as soon as the story broke.  When Manning was commuted by Barack Obama in January, republicans showed extreme disapproval.  They claimed that Obama was freeing an American traitor.  However, the republicans’ treatment of Julian Assange has been far different.  While Sean Hannity expresses unapologetic disdain for Chelsea Manning, he openly supports the actions of Assange.  Since many republicans believed that Assange’s work helped dismantle the Clinton campaign, they have suddenly grown supportive of the extreme investigative journalism.  Additionally, many republicans now seem to be content with the fact the Russia may have helped WikiLeaks acquire this information.  This support comes in strong contrast of their opinions in 2012, when presidential candidate Mitt Romney warned of the dangers of Russian interference in American politics.  They supported that notion then, but not now.  While much of the republicans’ disapproval with Chelsea Manning’s commuting may stem from pure dislike for Barack Obama, others genuinely believe that she is a traitor that must be held accountable for.  According to YouGov.com, while only 19% of republicans believed that WikiLeaks served the public interest back in 2010, an astonishing 74% believe it to be beneficial today. This unprecedented 55% swing of approval clearly depicts hypocrisy amongst the right.  In this same period of time, the number of democrats who believe that WikiLeaks is beneficial to democracy has plummeted.  Obviously, when republicans went from the victims to the beneficiaries, their positions completely switched.  Evidently, the same can be said about the democratic party.  As usual, both political parties were guilty of blatant hypocrisy in the WikiLeaks debate.