The Alligator endorses Hillary Clinton for president

This election has been anything but typical. It’s an election that has spawned questions that breach the core of the American spirit. Who are we as a nation? What direction is our nation headed toward? To whom will we offer our hands in aid, and against whom will we raise our arms in opposition? A simple answer to any of these questions is insufficient. These questions are as complex as the society that asks them. We need to have the courage to embrace that complexity — no matter how strange, uncomfortable or morally questionable. In this election cycle, there is only one candidate with the courage to answer these questions with the respect, thoughtfulness and honesty they deserve. That candidate is Hillary Clinton.

We know for most of our readers this endorsement does not come as a surprise, and we could easily reaffirm the beliefs Clinton supporters already have — the beliefs we have already voiced. Instead, this endorsement is for those who are either reluctantly voting for Trump or those whose political allegiances remain undecided. If you’re against Clinton by virtue of her being a Democratic candidate, a Clinton or a (supposed) “establishment candidate,” we promise we have more to say than “She’s more fit to lead this nation because she is not Donald Trump.”

Clinton has accumulated over 40 years in public office. Such experience has made her familiar with multiple facets of both local and federal government. Moreover, she’s accumulated those 40 years as a woman — a demographic that has historically faced opposition in the field of politics. Politics is an uphill battle, and being a woman makes that incline even steeper. When Trump praised Clinton as “a fighter,” he was correct. She relentlessly pursues what she thinks is good.

When Clinton was first lady, she faced intimate difficulties with unparalleled toughness in her personal life alongside the professional and political pressures of her public office. In her political life, Clinton has drafted intricate proposals on issues like crime, race relations, college tuition, small-business incentives and climate change. In order for her to get the ball rolling on those issues, she’s going to need to work with a Republican Party that — it’s also worth noting — has serious qualms about supporting its own candidate. Working across the aisle will be incredibly difficult, but Clinton has shown she is more than capable of doing so.

Don’t misconstrue our words: Clinton has made mistakes in her past. Like any other candidate running for the presidency since 1789, she is not without flaws. Her respect and understanding of the political process sometimes make her successes small and insignificant. Sometimes these delicately-taken steps have left her fumbling. While there is minor accuracy to the wrongdoings of her past, the image her opposition paints in light of these wrongdoings is a complete and total distortion of Clinton’s actual image. If anything, these have simply been revivals of the quintessential and absurd difficulties every politician faces and mistakes similar to those of her predecessors.

The world is a complex place, and there is both beauty and difficulty to be found in that complexity. Instead of hiding from this difficulty, let’s have the courage as an electorate to face them. With that said, we here at the Alligator know Clinton is the only person on the ballot who is capable and courageous enough to lead our great nation into the future as she has demonstrated in the past.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016.