By Madhav Ashar
Introduction
For the campaign leading up to the 45th presidential election of the U.S., which is just few hours from now, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been humiliating one another constantly. The electoral bodies will give the results on the 8th and the new president will thus be elected. However, the next POTUS will join the office in January, 2017.
There have been major controversies regarding both Clinton and Trump over many issues, most of which have been driven by personality clashes rather than policy differences.
Both of them want to win the hearts of people through policies which are sympathetic to American citizens. Both of them have been spending millions of dollars on criticizing the other. This has always happened in most of the Presidential elections in the U.S. till date. And in such a case, the major difference can be the mindset of both candidates and their reach to the people.
This election will decide the fate of the United States either through a clear margin or a narrow lead win like in the case of the 2008 Presidential elections between Obama and McCain.
Majority of the celebrities and public figures do not support Trump as a good candidate, and are in favour of Clinton. This has helped her in attracting the undecided voters.
However, there are more number of decided voters and they judge the candidate on the basis of the policies they promise with regards to relations with other countries, personal benefits, etc. Five major areas regarding future plans as the probable next POTUS, which have helped both the candidates gain supporters are:
- Approach and Aggression:
Trump is a New Yorker with a liberal past on several issues who has gotten into the campaign with the slogan ‘Make America Great Again’, favouring a vision to build a 1000 mile wall and bringing his personal views about the leadership.
On the other hand, Clinton has promised to break down barriers; she wants to fill the shoes of Bill Clinton and Obama. She’s usually not aggressive at campaigning and her slogan ‘stronger together’ sends across the feeling that she wants to freeze the current situation.
- Taxes and Jobs:
Clinton wishes to increases taxes for people with higher income, and wants to help in building jobs by investing more in manufacturing and other sectors. She also sympathises with the economically weaker Americans and has plans for an increase in minimum wages.
Trump has exactly the opposite plan: of decreasing taxes to as low as 15%, expecting the heavy earners to invest in manufacturing units and thus create jobs. He feels that other nations are taking away America’s employment. He wants a boost to happen and says he will bring the boost.
- National Security:
Clinton boasts of experience but questions have been raised about her judgment: she admitted making a mistake by backing the Iraq war as the Secretary of State. There is also the case of her private email server, under investigation by the FBI. Many questions are yet to be answered by her!
On the other hand Trump has been criticised for lack of expertise and for statements which are harsh, as well as having an inviting attitude with regards to Vladimir Putin. There have also been suggestions that the military might disobey his orders, as he is very radical and aggressive in his views regarding wars.
- Immigration:
Trump’s most notorious plan is of building a 1000-mile wall along Mexican border with Mexico paying for the same (reportedly, Mexican President has no intentions of paying for this though). There are as many as 11million immigrants and Trump wants them to return to their country. He has a view to renegotiate the treaty with the neighbouring nations so as to benefit the U.S. government.
Clinton, on the other hand, wants full and equal citizenship with measured reforms for the suffering people, and is also against building the wall across countries like Mexico, in order to win the hearts of the immigrants.
- Health Care:
Trump’s vision for healthcare consists of making a new policy and re-establishing all the rules, and making it cheaper by inviting competition into healthcare sector. This is actually a modern view, which could prove to be both helpful as well as effective for the locals. Trump opposes abortions, and favours a ban on abortions unless for a specific reason.
Clinton is planning to stick to ‘Obamacare’ and making minor changes in it, to help it function better, and says it is difficult to change the entire policy and start insuring all the people all over again. ‘Healthy America’ is what Obama’s vision was but he failed to achieve that, but she believes the policy to be a good one, which will help achieve that vision after some minor changes. Clinton also has favourable views on Roe V. Wade (a decision by the United States Supreme Court regarding abortion) as she counts it to be a constitutional right to do so. She understands the situation of abortion and she is pro-choice when it comes to this topic.
Why Trump, and not Clinton? (from India’s point of view)
It may seem that Clinton is kind and Trump is aggressive, but for India Trump could be more beneficial, as he has a fresh start as compared to Clinton!
He has to start all over again and India can hit the mark meanwhile by keeping good relations and framing policies. Trump’s vision of America appears to take up a lot of his time and is also a bit impractical, and hence India will be benefitted from the recession in the U.S. and attract investments to India.
Also, Trump recently said in one of his speeches that he is a big fan of India and Prime Minister Modi and that he wants him to be his close(st) ally and appreciates him for his work. Trump’s aggressive anger on radical Islamic terrorism can help bring peace in India. His view on eradicating ISIS and other terror groups can be a peace for the world.
Why Clinton, and not Trump? (from India’s point of view)
As Clinton seems to be trying to follow Obama’s lead, and favours keeping the policies as they are, it could be good news for India. Clinton supports peace and wants friendly relations with the world. She has a clear view and her path has already been built by Obama. Now she just needs to implement them with dedication and continue with the same rate of development, keeping the major policies unchanged.
Market forecast:
There have been a lot of debates regarding how the markets would react to the outcome of the U.S. Presidential elections. Experts say it will be a disaster if Trump ends up winning; his policies and the approach are aggressive and can harm relations with other countries. Mexico, the 2nd largest country for the U.S. in terms of the trading carried out between them, Gulf countries, etc. are some of the nations that fear the possibility of Trump as the President of one of the most powerful nations, as his ideas, and plans regarding them are disastrous, to say the least. Expert also suggested that the market can crash, like it did in 2008, as many major investors have been talking of leaving the country if Trump wins.
What do the polls suggest?
Donald Trump’s impression among the general public was already alarming, and Clinton hit the bull’s-eye by charging him with being derogatory towards women and sexually assaulting them. In addition to that, she also called him out for being Putin’s puppet. Trump did nothing but denied and ignored the allegations with no evidence to prove that he is not guilty. Rather, he counter-attacked Clinton by highlighting her email scam and naming her a security risk to the country. Trump’s major drawback was his aggression, in the face of which Clinton didn’t lose her calm and kept her patience, which proved to work in her favour. Although her email scam did shock her supporters and the undecided voters, the scam related to her deleting 33,000 mails from a private e-mail server didn’t affect Clinton much since she hadn’t been found guilty of the charges, in an investigation carried out by the FBI.
The Presidential Debates were the last few opportunities left for Trump to turn the race in his favour, but he failed to win even one out of the three. And thus the general public is now in favour of Clinton, according to what the polls say.
The latest polls show a narrow lead win for Clinton. If Clinton does win, she would become the first female president of the U.S. – a country that is otherwise so vocal about gender equality, but has never had a female president since the office was established in 1789.
Quick facts:
Hillary Clinton has worked for U.S. Government for more than 30 years and she was also the Secretary of State.
Donald Trump is a billionaire businessman, with a net worth of 2.5 billion USD.