In the office of the Syntropic Arc Project we discuss a variety of political, ecological, philosophical, and religious issues. We are dreamers, but we try to base our dreams on evidence. We strive to link our long and short-term goals in a realistic way. So when we consider the current candidates for President of the United States we ask who really has a chance to win, and of those, who best represents both the short and long term-interests not only of the United States of America but the rest of the world as well.
These considerations make it clear to us that there is really only one choice, so we were delighted to see that numerous polls, newspapers, and personal endorsements are turning toward Hillary Clinton:
Here’s a note from The Improper.com:
Hillary Clinton has rebounded to gain the lead in national polls while Donald Trump was snubbed by CEOs of the nation’s top 100 companies. Hillary Clinton is seeing a groundswell of endorsements ahead of the first presidential debate with Donald Trump, who suffered another key setback.
However, the endorsement that we felt was most significant and the most evidence-based was the one by The New York Times Editors, and we fully agree with their assessment:
Mrs. Clinton’s work has been defined more by incremental successes than by moments of transformational change. As a candidate, she has struggled to step back from a pointillist collection of policy proposals to reveal the full pattern of her record. That is a weakness of her campaign, and a perplexing one, for the pattern is clear. It shows a determined leader intent on creating opportunity for struggling Americans at a time of economic upheaval and on ensuring that the United States remains a force for good in an often brutal world.
Similarly, Mrs. Clinton’s occasional missteps, combined with attacks on her trustworthiness, have distorted perceptions of her character. She is one of the most tenacious politicians of her generation, whose willingness to study and correct course is rare in an age of unyielding partisanship. As first lady, she rebounded from professional setbacks and personal trials with astounding resilience. Over eight years in the Senate and four as secretary of state, she built a reputation for grit and bipartisan collaboration. She displayed a command of policy and diplomatic nuance and an ability to listen to constituents and colleagues that are all too exceptional in Washington.
Mrs. Clinton’s record of service to children, women and families has spanned her adult life. One of her boldest acts as first lady was her 1995 speech in Beijing declaring that women’s rights are human rights. After a failed attempt to overhaul the nation’s health care system, she threw her support behind legislation to establish the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which now covers more than eight million lower-income young people. This year, she rallied mothers of gun-violence victims to join her in demanding comprehensive background checks for gun buyers and tighter reins on gun sales.
After opposing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants during the 2008 campaign, she now vows to push for comprehensive immigration legislation as president and to use executive power to protect law-abiding undocumented people from deportation and cruel detention. Some may dismiss her shift as opportunistic, but we credit her for arriving at the right position.
Mrs. Clinton and her team have produced detailed proposals on crime, policing and race relations, debt-free college and small-business incentives, climate change and affordable broadband. Most of these proposals would benefit from further elaboration on how to pay for them, beyond taxing the wealthiest Americans. They would also depend on passage by Congress.
Her most lasting achievements as a senator include a federal fund for long-term health monitoring of 9/11 first responders, an expansion of military benefits to cover reservists and the National Guard, and a law requiring drug companies to improve the safety of their medications for children.
As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton was charged with repairing American credibility after eight years of the Bush administration’s unilateralism. She bears a share of the responsibility for the Obama administration’s foreign-policy failings, notably in Libya. But her achievements are substantial. She led efforts to strengthen sanctions against Iran, which eventually pushed it to the table for talks over its nuclear program, and in 2012, she helped negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
Mrs. Clinton led efforts to renew diplomatic relations with Myanmar, persuading its junta to adopt political reforms. She helped promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an important trade counterweight to China and a key component of the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia. Her election-year reversal on that pact has confused some of her supporters, but her underlying commitment to bolstering trade along with workers’ rights is not in doubt. Mrs. Clinton’s attempt to reset relations with Russia, though far from successful, was a sensible effort to improve interactions with a rivalrous nuclear power.
Mrs. Clinton’s service spans both eras, and she has learned hard lessons from the three 
presidents she has studied up close. She has also made her own share of mistakes. She has evinced a lamentable penchant for secrecy and made a poor decision to rely on a private email server while at the State Department. That decision deserved scrutiny, and it’s had it. Now, considered alongside the real challenges that will occupy the next president, that email server, which has consumed so much of this campaign, looks like a matter for the help desk. And, viewed against those challenges, Mr. Trump shrinks to his true small-screen, reality-show proportions, as we’ll argue in detail on Monday.
Through war and recession, Americans born since 9/11 have had to grow up fast, and they deserve a grown-up president. A lifetime’s commitment to solving problems in the real world qualifies Hillary Clinton for this job, and the country should put her to work.
Contrast the above view of Secretary Clinton with the personal history and policy statements of her opponent, Donald Trump. We’ll mention here only three examples, each of which should be enough to disqualify him as a candidate for President of the United States:
- Mr. Trump has declared that global warming is a hoax.
- Mr. Trump has implied a policy of first use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East conflicts. This goes much farther than possible first use against other nuclear powers.
- He has declared that with no good plan to replace it, he will dismantle The Affordable Care Act.
There are many other reasons for voting against Mr. Trump, but we agree with the Editors of the New York Times that a vote for Hillary is not just a vote against Trump. For example, her long record of achievements speaks louder than any of the sorry, politically-motivated attempts to discredit her. Further, the Party Platform that she is running on is the most progressive policy platform since FDR.
We recommend yet more dramatic and progressive steps than she has outlined, but given the current arrangement of political power in the United States, we think she has gone about as far as any viable candidate can now go with plans to move the United States closer to an authentic democracy. A vote for any other candidate risks the only realistic chance we have to avert disaster.