Courier-Post/The Daily Journal Editorial Board

On Nov. 8, Americans have the chance to choose between two visions for America: one that clings to a past that never really existed and one that promises our best days are ahead.

Hillary Clinton understands the issues facing our country, offers practical solutions and articulates a vision for bolstering America’s greatness by fulfilling its promise to all Americans. And unlike Donald Trump, she has the experience, the temperament, the maturity and the grasp of policy needed to lead this nation during a time of rapid change.

Clinton listens to differing opinions, owns up to her mistakes and moves forward. She is among the most qualified and most vetted candidates ever to seek our nation’s highest office, and she has what it takes to command our troops, stabilize the Supreme Court, fix our aging infrastructure and guide a shift to cleaner energy to meet the challenge of climate change.

Throughout her career, she has advocated for families and blazed trails for women.

As a young lawyer at the Children’s Defense Fund, she campaigned for children with disabilities, pushing Massachusetts to provide education for all. As the first lady of Arkansas and the United States, she focused on health, education and women’s rights; though her attempts to establish universal health care were thwarted, she shepherded the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which now covers more than 8 million kids.

As a senator representing New York, she fought to get 9/11 responders the health care they needed. And as secretary of state, she advised President Barack Obama on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

She did not do this work quickly or alone; that’s not how real-world change works. Rather, she worked with many, many others — Democrats and Republicans, fellow Americans, allies and leaders of hostile nations — over the course of decades.

By almost every measure, America is stronger now than when Obama took office in 2009. The economy has rebounded, though structural changes remain a challenge. Homicides are down. The infant mortality rate has fallen. In 2015, fewer American soldiers were killed in the line of duty than in any year since 2001. And fewer police officers have died in the line of duty in each of the last three years than at any point since the 1950s, when there were far fewer cops.

Clinton has embraced Obama’s policies and legacy and has pledged her commitment to building on their foundation. One area in which she must continue Obama’s work is reducing gun violence. Though Trump and the powerful gun lobby have tried to stoke fears that she wants to confiscate people’s guns, Clinton’s plan is far more nuanced. In addition to smarter gun-safety measures, her plan includes better training for police, making the criminal justice system more fair and expanding access to mental health treatment. This is a smart strategy that can make American stronger and safer.

Trump, meanwhile, has tried to sell himself as an agent of change and the only person who can make America great again. He’s wrong on both counts.

Far from representing change, Trump wants to turn back progress by appealing to fear and division rather than hope and unity. He would reinstitute failed “law-and-order” policies like stop-and-frisk, which unconstitutionally targeted people and did not reduce crime. Likewise, his plans to build a wall with Mexico, deport illegal immigrants and ban Muslims from entering the country would not protect American lives and jobs. Voters in border states like Texas and Arizona have seen policies like those Trump calls for, and they have rejected them. And the misogynistic way he talks about women is as backward as it gets.

It’s telling that, even before Trump’s unforgivably crude comments to Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” in 2005 came to light recently, none of the men who have held the nation’s top office nor any former secretaries of state was willing to endorse him. Fifty former national security officials who served in Republican administrations are so worried that they signed an open letter declaring they would not vote for the party’s nominee.

“From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief,” they wrote. “Indeed, we are convinced that he would be a dangerous President and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

Trump has managed to turn even his presumed strength — his business acumen — into a liability. In the first presidential debate, he scoffed at Clinton’s preparation and bragged about all the wrong things, such as saying not paying income taxes makes him smart or that stiffing contractors and rooting for the housing crisis makes him a savvy businessman.

Trump is guided by grudges and he plays fast and loose with the facts, either because he doesn’t know or doesn’t care. Too often he says something outrageous, only to claim later that he was just joking. While his stances on important positions have not been consistent, his penchant for making untenable statements has been alarmingly consistent. The “Access Hollywood” comments are just one example, although their timing has thankfully allowed them to resonate more loudly than Trump’s other deplorable statements.

We wholeheartedly and confidently endorse Hillary Clinton to be our next president.

It’s not just that Trump would make a terrible president. It’s that Clinton has spent a lifetime thinking about how to make things better for everyone and fighting to make that happen, while Trump has never stopped focusing on a narrower set of obligations: to himself, his family, his companies and his celebrity status.

Consider their visions for improving education.

Clinton takes a multipronged approach that includes expanded home-visitation programs that support new parents and their children, universal preschool, modernized classrooms, expanded computer science instruction, behavioral support programs, competitive salaries for child care providers and teachers, scholarships for college students who are raising children, debt-free college education, job-training programs that are in line with local employers’ needs, and tax credits for businesses that hire apprentices.

Trump’s plan involves little more than diverting money from public schools and vague vows to reduce the cost of education through institutional tax breaks.

Clinton proposes fighting Alzheimer’s by investing $2 billion per year in research, and she would address drug addiction by expanding treatment programs, setting up prescription drug monitoring programs, prioritizing rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders and ending mass incarceration.

Clinton’s plan to rebuild our infrastructure includes investing $275 billion over five years to rebuild roads and bridges; modernize airports and pipelines; and fix water systems, dams and levees, creating millions of jobs in the process.

Trump, who has said he’d double Clinton’s infrastructure investment, hasn’t offered any specifics about where that money would go.

He clearly does not have a grasp of the issues, nor does he show any motivation toward listening to experts and learning more. Anyone who bothers to read an editorial they disagree with demonstrates more intellectual curiosity than Trump has.

Clinton’s vision is realistic, her goals achievable if — and it’s a very big if — she has willing partners in Congress.

Clinton is not a perfect candidate. The trouble with making tough decisions over the course of a long career is that some of them will be the wrong ones. Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq War is one of these. She mishandled inquiries into her use of private email while secretary of state and possible conflicts of interest involving the Clinton Foundation. And her reluctance to take questions from the press is infuriating.

Perhaps most importantly, after eight years of vitriol directed at our first African-American president, our country could use a unifying figure to help us heal. Clinton has been loathed so deeply and so long by a vocal segment of conservatives that it’s hard to imagine Republicans in Congress giving her the support she needs to succeed. But it’s impossible to name anyone who is fit for the presidency, wants the job, and is palatable to conservatives, liberals and everyone in between.

Clinton has had to be smarter, work harder, wait longer and take more of a beating than any presidential contender in recent memory. She has maintained her composure in the face of unceasing personal attacks and disproportionate investigations into her husband’s infidelities and her handling of an attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. She has been tested as a leader, and she has passed that test.

Hillary Clinton is the person best positioned to lead America for the next four years.