Any functioning adult would be better

We can never know exactly what Hillary Clinton would have done had she won 3.5 years ago, but let us count the ways the United States could have been better off if just about any normal functioning adult–Republican or Democratic–had become president:

• Well over 150,000 Americans would not have succumbed to Covid19, the epidemic would have receded faster, the economy would have reopened months faster and far safer, the US would be leading the world’s economic recovery instead of dragging it down, and the US debt would be trillions less.
• Millions of now unemployed people would have jobs, and no one would risk losing the health insurance and coverage for preexisting conditions available under Obamacare.
• The Paris Climate Accord would be more effective in limiting greenhouse gases that have contributed to this summer’s record number and intensity of storms in the Atlantic and the unprecedented wildfires in California, causing many billions of dollars of losses.
• The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership might have been concluded, with real advantages for US producers rather than the marginal replacement for NAFTA and the trade war with China that has damaged US agriculture, manufacturers, and consumers.
• Iran would still be a year from having enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon and negotiation of the follow-on to the nuclear deal would be in progress, including on missiles and regional issues.
• The Voting Rights Act might have been revived in response to the Black Lives Matter protests, along with legislation curbing police abuse, and there would be no discussion of imaginary anarchy in American cities or use of the military against peaceful protests.
• The US would still have the confidence and support of its European allies and China would still be observing the agreement it reached with the Obama administration on commercial hacking.
• Russia would be showing some respect instead of owning the President of the United States, whom it only needs to quote to make its points.
• There would still be hope for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine and a possibility of curbing the North Korean nuclear program, which has instead inaugurated a missile possibly capable of hitting the US with multiple nuclear warheads.

Of course lots of things would not likely be different: we might still be outside the Trans Pacific Partnership looking in, Maduro might still be president of Argentina, Syria, Yemen, and Libya would still be catastrophic, and the Saudi Crown Prince might still have ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, though MbS would not have been shielded from accountability by the US President.

The United States would be in a far stronger position under any functioning adult, Democratic or Republican, than it is under the false flag of “Make America Great Again.” For anyone interested in foreign policy, that is all you really need to know while filling out your ballot at home and popping it into the mail, provided the US Postal Service doesn’t follow President Trump’s instructions to ensure it doesn’t arrive on time.