Much is being made of Hillary Clinton not being trustworthy, transparent or honest. After 40 years of attacks on her character by people who opposed her efforts, the default response may be that many people just don’t trust her.
But here’s the thing.
If you have new information, it informs your opinion and may change your position. In an ever-changing world, we need leaders who can adjust and adapt. Some people may conflate changing positions with dishonesty or worse, weakness.
When responding to a crisis, information flows at critical speed. They call it the Situation Room because the President and his trusted and knowledgeable advisors take in information real time, and make decisions based on the best available information. Now, I know that I would trust Hillary to not only be surrounded by national security experts (instead of a Winery Manager), but that she would be fluid in her ability to digest both advice and information to make informed decisions.
Contrast that with those who stake out positions, and in an echo chamber or worldview bubble, cannot or will not change positions. What a significant clusterblunder that would create! Flip flop is a pejorative term used by the rigid to taint opponents as being dishonest, and leads to the trust deficit. People so blinded by ideology they are incapable of accepting information to make sound decisions have no business being in the Situation Room.
I don’t care if Hillary was against gay marriage twenty years ago.
I don’t care if she was for the TPP last year, and now she is against it.
My standard for trust must be a little different from some others who poll that she is not trustworthy. My standard of trust is, can she change her mind when presented with a changing world, changing demographics, a changing economy, new technology and changing constituent needs? I not only trust Hillary to represent me and make sound decisions for me, but more importantly, I trust her with my children’s lives. That may sound like a bold, or risky statement, but the reality of it is I am here in this country and on this earth to protect and care for my children. Period. Yes, I trust Hillary not despite her changing positions, but because of her ability to change positions. Godspeed to the Whitehouse HRC!