Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Clinton Presidency vs. Trump Presidency: How I See It

Disclaimer: I do not support Hillary Clinton. I do not support Donald Trump. I'm not going to vote for either one of them, especially not just to stop the other one from winning, nor am I going to encourage anyone else to do so. That said, I do think that their presidencies would be bad in different ways.

For purposes of metaphor, let's pretend that "the country" is an individual man or woman and that "the presidency" is that person's daily activities.

Here's what Mr. or Ms. America looks like as a Clinton presidency (in my opinion):

Every day, seven days a week, he or she sits down at a table, puts his or her right hand on the table, palm down, fingers spread, and then with his or her left hand uses a ball peen hammer to hit the right hand, sharply and with vigor, for eight straight hours. Presumably after four or eight years of that, every bone in the right hand will be not just broken but irreparably pulverized.

So to put it a different way: A Clinton presidency will be routinely ugly and painful and damaging and permanently disfiguring, but only suicidal on a freak accident basis (e.g. he or she accidentally hits herself hard right between the eyes on the backswing).

Here's what Mr. or Mrs. America looks like as a Trump presidency (in my opinion):

He or she has an apartment, and an office, on the 100th floors of adjacent buildings with a very narrow alley (3 or 4 feet wide) between them. Instead of taking an elevator down 100 floors down, then 100 floors up, every morning and every night, he or she decides it makes more sense to just jump across that alley twice a day. The office and the apartment both have balconies, and to make it more exciting, every morning and evening he or she dips his or her hands and feet in grease before climbing up on the balcony railing for the jump.

So to put it a different way: A Trump presidency won't be nearly as routinely ugly and painful as a Clinton presidency. It will be exciting and exhilarating ... until, one morning or evening, the jump becomes a 100-story fall followed by a terminal velocity encounter with hard asphalt.

I don't really care much for either prospect.

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