By Ameara Ditsche
Staff Writer
Despite many third party candidates, the 2016 presidential election came down to Hillary Clinton v. Donald Trump. Clinton may have been the most qualified person to ever run for president. She was the Secretary of State, a Senator, and the first lady. Politics had been her life for decades.
Regardless of what anyone believed about her or her views, it was undeniable that she had a remarkable amount of experience.
Trump, on the other hand, had none. So, his rampant supporters were forced to attack Clinton’s character and specific actions. One of the most notable being her emails and the Wikileaks scandal.
White House employees are provided with a work email account on a private server that is of course monitored by security to ensure that no one is sharing information or doing anything unsafe or treason-esque with the sensitive information they are provided.
Hillary Clinton was outed as using her own email account for government business, making people believe she was up to something sketchy. Many called for her to be put under FBI investigation.
The FBI did examine the server and emails, Director James Comey deemed her actions “careless” but stated that there was no danger at hand and no charges will be filed.
The investigation resurfaced in 2016 when new emails were discovered, but after evaluation, Comey stuck to his original conclusion. Despite her ultimately being innocent, staunch Republicans rejoiced and clung at any excuse to hate Hillary.
The whole ordeal earned her the moniker “Crooked Hillary” on the 2016 campaign trail, courtesy of Trump himself.
And just recently, Ivanka Trump—Donald Trump’s daughter and employee— was caught doing the same thing.
The key difference is that Ivanka Trump received not even a fraction of the backlash Clinton did. Trump and Clinton both claimed ignorance of the rule as defense. For Trump it is a less viable defense since it is far less likely she was unaware, since it was a national issue at one point.
Ivanka Trump is a businesswoman and fashion mogul so she is not entirely to blame for the mistakes she makes at the expense of furthering her father’s political agenda. The bigger issue here, is the public’s reaction.
Hillary, still suffers verbal abuse and online trolling about the event that happened years ago. Ivanka’s scandal, however, seemed to blow over in a week like any other crazy Trump family headline.
For so long, it seemed as if the constant attacks on Hillary were a result of blatant sexism. If that were the case, why wouldn’t Ivanka receive that same backlash?
The conservatives that support Trump are just close-minded hypocrites. They are arrogant about their ideals that they have a Machiavellian process of getting them put into action, they don’t care about what is done.
The results justify the means. They are so focussed on the result that their means don’t make sense. They want their preferred results so bad, they’ll accept anything.
Events that contradict past statements, of course these past statements also held little conviction as they too were just last minutes strides to attack whoever way in their way.
Conservatives are no strangers to such close minded views. Their hypocrisy is something that at this point, we just accept as fact, but is troubling when they use things as vehicles to political win, that they claim to commend, it ruins their ethical appeal and makes an entire political party seem untrustworthy.
Without trust in politicians the political efficacy of citizens is at risk. Without a politically efficate body, the progress of government will be stunted.
