As Election Day approaches, some of us may come to think before we cast our votes, “How did we manage to end up with these two?” And for the obvious answer, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump were the favorites for their representing parties. Throughout the entire election process, there has been a lot of arguing on behalf of both sides, on whether who is the more “evil” between the two candidates.

Hillary Clinton has been called out on many things such as her management of the Benghazi attack, the us of donations from the Clinton Foundation, and the most recent incident, her use of personal email servers for classified emails. The Benghazi attack Clinton was a part of resulted in the death of several American soldiers. During Clinton’s visit to Benghazi, she states that she was under fire and had to take cover upon arriving, but video evidence shows her greeting and taking pictures with others. Many have called this a cover-up for lying and for her failure to do her job. In regards to the Clinton Foundation, Clinton made statements, saying that she would distance herself from the Clinton Foundation as well as limit foreign donations. However, she has failed to live up to her statements again as it was found that Clinton was granting favors to major Clinton Foundation donors and received millions of donations from foreign governments. Finally, the latest e-mail scandal that emerged as a result of Hillary’s carelessness, leaked through wikileaks which revealed her use of a personal email-server rather than a government-authorized server.

Donald J Trump has been called out on his lack of morals, hypocrisies, and recent voice clips of him being sexually assertive over women. Donald Trump’s campaign revolves around the slogan “Make America Great Again”, while kicking out all Mexicans as they are labeled as rapist and drug dealers, and keeping out all Muslims from America, as they are labeled as terrorist. What he attempts to gain by saying this is to have Americans who feel that their opportunities were stolen by “non-Americans” vote for him and to not allow cultural diffusion. Many jobs are also outsourced to outside places because of the cheap production cost which Donald Trump does as well, so by definition, he is a leading cause as to why immigrants are stealing “American jobs”. The recent voice clips leaked about Donald Trump contain him speaking about how he is able to sexually harass women because he is rich and famous and wouldn’t face repercussions.

Tl;dr, vote for who you believe is the best for the country, not because of who is of lesser evil or who you hate more.

https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/hillary-clinton-hat/OC8yNy8xNjpIYXQ

The campaign rhetoric I chose to write about is Hillary Clinton’s advertisement titled “Hat”. The visual advertisement calls Trump out on his slogan, “Make America Great Again” by using his products against him. When Trump continually talks about how jobs are being outsourced to outside nations at a cheaper rate, he forgets that he is also a business man who cares only about profits for his business. His products are all created in outside nations. His shirts are made in Bangladesh, his ties in China, and his suits in Mexico. So by definition, he is just a hypocrite that people do not research because he says what the average American thinks but is too afraid to say.

The ad itself is a logos speech, shown by the comparison of Trump’s statements of job outsourcing and what he actually does. I actually think this is a really effective way of persuasion because it shows that Trump is not loyal to what he says, it backs the people who call him out of flip-flopping on his statements. Now if he were to remain loyal to his statements of outside countries stealing the American peoples jobs, I believe he would have to discontinue some of his products due to being unable to exploit workers in the United States for lower wages which would hurt him business wise.

I am not a supporter of either candidate, but I do believe that this ad is highly effective in attacking the other. What I believe Clinton gains as a result of this advertisement are more media and press questioning him about his statement and how his businesses operate regarding his standings when it comes to job outsourcing.

In about three weeks, Election Day will come around where we cast our votes for who we want to be the next POTUS. Considering our current candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, many of us feel inclined to vote the one that is of lesser evil. However, for me, I am heavily considering not voting for either representatives.

I understand that people will bring up arguments such as “All votes count” and “Your vote could make the difference”. However, when you look at both Presidential candidates, it really makes me wonder how they even got that far in the first place. From what I have seen, both candidates only say what they need to in order to cater to a specific group of people, and avoid controversial questions. As they are to be as professional as they can be, they can’t even hold a proper debate without interrupting and insulting one another. In debates, they continually diverge from their questions and change the question, eventually leading to personal attacks during Presidential debates which have no place for them at all.

Donald Trump provides no substance for his arguments. He makes all these claims about how he is going to “Make America Great Again”, yet when he is called out on it, he denies he ever said these things or changes his argument on the subject. Hillary Clinton on the other hand, is just seen as a liar to the American people after her e-mails were leaked to the public. The majority of us who are voting, I believe, are voting for one candidate because they don’t like the other and that they are not as bad as the other. However, many do not consider how their entrance into such a powerful position in the United States may affect them and their lives. What we need voters to do is understand their candidates and their plans during  their presidency, and not vote because they don’t like the other candidate.

After constant re-watching of other monologues,  the one I decided to choose is Vet Story by Seema Sueko, acted out by Tobias Segal. Tobias depicts a veteran experiencing PTSD, which causes him to take actions that even himself questions. What made me choose this monologue is the fact that he does not blame his actions on PTSD, rather on himself because he is self-aware. He desires his innocence back from before he went to war, but understand that he made the choice to go into war in the first place.

For the majority of the monologue, Tobias constantly repeats “Why”, and that is something I believe all of us can all relate to when we do something irrational or want answers. As human beings we all question ourselves and our actions and when we realize that what we have done may be wrong, we cannon undo those actions and the only way we compensate is through self questioning and apologizing.

I guess why this monologue left an impact on me is because of how Tobias freely expresses his thoughts and emotions. We have to be aware of our actions before we take them and realize that nothing can undo the results we create.