Most of the students at Westminster, including myself, remember a mere two
presidential elections; however, our third election will most-likely go down as the wildest
election in U.S. history. Two years ago, someone would have laughed in your face if you told
them that Donald Trump, the reality T.V. star, billionaire business tycoon, had won the
Republican Nomination. Even now, as the general draws nearer, the American public is baffled
at how someone who has no political experience, no military experience, and seemingly no
filter, is one of two choices to become the next leader of the free world. While some of Mr.
Trump’s loyal supporters claim that he is an appealing off-pace candidate from the “same-old,
same-old” political families such as the Clintons, I’m here to show anyone reading this why it
would be a nightmare for our country if Mr. Donald Trump ascends into office in November.
Many fans see Mr. Trump as a highly successful businessman and they think to
themselves, “If Donald Trump can run a business, then he could probably run a country, right?”
Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has had more failed businesses than you can count, and in addition,
he has filed for bankruptcy FOUR TIMES. Some of Mr. Trump’s most prominent business fiascos
are Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, and Trump Mortgage, which he started in 2006 (right before
the recession). To give him credit, he has still managed to remain in business even after all of
these financial flops. However, what is more concerning to me is how Mr. Trump has treated
some of the private contractors he has worked with. Recently, Democratic Candidate Hilary
Clinton released a video highlighting the plight of Andrew Tesoro, an architect whose company
was nearly put under by Mr. Trump’s incompliance to pay him the agreed upon amount. After
being promised $140,000 for his company’s services, Andrew Tesoro walked away with a check
for $25,000.

“We didn’t even collect enough to fully compensate all of our consultants,” said Tesoro.
“We had to go back and ask them to take less. I had to divvy up the $25,000. I only kept a small
amount. We had to dig into credit lines just to keep the ship afloat. I’m a sole proprietor so we
siphoned off much of my savings. Then the recession hit. We were just getting back on our feet
from the Trump punch in the stomach and a lot of other work fell away. We got really close to
folding. There were two years when my income was zero.”
Mr. Tesoro’s story is just one of many who were bullied by the Trump Corporation.
Unfortunately, the dishonesty and deceit doesn’t stop in the business world, but has also
continuted onto the campaign trail.

One of the Trump Campaign’s most recent infamous incidents was that of Melania
Trump, the Republican nominee’s wife, who appeared to plagiarize multiple lines from Michelle
Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention Speech. Mrs. Trump is not running for
president, her husband is, so why should we care? I think the reason that we should care is how
Donald Trump and his crew handled the incident. Shortly after the public had a field day with
the similarities of the two speeches, the Trump Campaign announced that one of its members,
who helped Mrs. Trump write the speech, had stepped forward to be blamed. I found it hard to
believe that someone who wrote speeches for their livelihood would ever break the cardinal sin
of plagiarism. In fact, before delivering her speech, Mrs. Trump told reporters on the TODAY
show that she wrote the speech herself.
I read it once over, and that’s all because I wrote it with as little help as possible,” said
Mrs. Trump.

If this cover-up were to be true, and a fair amount of evidence indicates so, I find it very
hypocritical coming from the Trump Campaign. Mr. Trump constantly bashes Mrs. Clinton for
her dishonesty regarding the Benghazi email scandal and calls her “Crooked Hillary” upon
nearly every reference. Ironic.

One of of Mr. Trump’s most blatant personality traits is the one that has separated him
from the usual persona of presidential candidates: his excessively large ego. Michael Morrell,
the former CIA Director of 40 years, believes that Mr. Trump’s hubris could potentially pose a
threat to national security.

Part of KGB agent training, which Vladimir Putin participated in, involves learning to
manipulate people through their faults, or personality defects. Morrell is under the impression
that Putin has “played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities” through superfluous compliments.
In accordance with his ego, as soon as Putin began to flatter the Republican nominee,
Mr. Trump seemingly developed an affinity for the Russian leader. Morrell has a special name
for this budding “relationship” between the two.
“In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an
unwitting agent of the Russian Federation,” said Morrell.
Morrell’s criticism; however, did not stop there. In his New York Times article, he
continued to bash Mr. Trump, citing “his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his
overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal
to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his
unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law."
Conversely, the former CIA Director had nothing but praise for Mrs. Clinton. Morrell
described the Democratic nominee as prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and
willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.
After the controversial Brexit vote, the idea of a country making a radical political
change isn’t as far-fetched as it used to be, but let’s be honest, I know that neither candidate is
perfect; they each have their own flaws. However, I would hope that after reading this article it
has become clear that Mr. Trump’s problems should disqualify him as a viable candidate for the
presidency. To anyone reading this article, hopefully you gained some divisive information
about who Donald Trump truly is, and that will lead you to make the right decision in
November.