WILL TRUMP WIN?

Before I begin writing this opinion piece, you should know going in that I’ll attempt to be as unbiased and fair minded as The New York Times, Breitbart News, The Washington Post, CNN, and Fox News has taught me to be over the last year and a half. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s begin on the simple thesis of this essay: will Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency? Thanks to the corruption in government and the news media’s willingness to report it instead of destroy it, I’m going to go out on a limb with Michael Moore whimpering…yes?

The Issues

The debates didn’t bother much with the issues facing the American people as they more favored a fun mud fling fest atmosphere. Reporters in charge of the post mortem appeared to hold their breaths not for solutions to America’s debts, wars, and flailing economic woes but rather a favorite zinger or one liner on which to report as opposed to answers on hard hitting issues. At one point a fellow debate watcher in the room with me likened it to watching a modern Rome burn as Nero played a tune, pundits playing the role of the nasty emperor. The metaphor seems apt.

Because while some people have likened America to that city on a hill, our city is in need of attention that rhetoric won’t fix. Sadly, for us as students and one day voters, let it be recorded here that the American people knew they were in trouble in 2016 at the time they cast their ballots, but they didn’t have any other recourse to do anything about it.

John Locke’s glorious revolution at the ballot box hasn’t seemed like much of a revolution of late. Politics appears to continue as usual while the bridges break, the roads shatter, and on the foreign side, the world appears to be turning upside down despite moves to stabilize foreign skirmishes on a daily basis. Iraq I’m looking at you.

And despite the fact that Congress is passing a budget each year which in turn exceeds the amount they know they will collect in taxes, the American people don’t feel cared for. Obamacare—like it or not, the first real plan to pass Congress to at least try to fix how all people can afford to go to the doctor and receive treatment— appears to be in need of life support as the cost of premiums are whispered to be rising while insurance companies refuse to participate. (A word on Obamacare: did anyone else catch that it imposed a 10% income tax penalty on the poorest people? My understanding is that if we students approaching college age don’t have health insurance and we work, we will have to pay a small percentage tax penalty on whatever we make to pay for our college education first to the government. I’m not sure how all that works. I just thought I would put that out there. Since I am already looking at maybe getting a job to pay for college in three years, that doesn’t sound all that cool to me.)

But hey, they didn’t really talk about any of the issues at the debates. Just fyi, Bernie Sanders was the only one who talked to me directly about my future. But I guess Hillary Clinton was the better choice?

I mean, that’s what the Super delegates—aka the Clinton machines good buddies—thought anyway.

Thomas Jefferson, where are you when we need you?

The Hillary Tries to Take that Hill

I didn’t want Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nominee. I wanted Bernie Sanders. I don’t know if he would have won the presidency or not. But, I at least wanted to have the opportunity to hear more about what he wanted to do for people. Between the two Democratic candidates, I really believed his heart was in the right place, and he wanted to try to make things more fair for people like me, people who aren’t like me, and didn’t really care if he helped the super-uber nuveau riche or not. I was good with that too.

First and foremost, I got it when Sanders and Elizabeth Warren wrote about the banks. I watched the YouTube videos that helped me understand that the banks and corporate America really aren’t playing fair. Let me see if I can articulate it back to you.

It’s like this. Corporations have vast amounts of wealth that they are sitting on like a bully not willing to play ball, and the most successful banks are really good friends with the most successful corporations. They are bullies too. Between the two of them, they are holding on to so much money you and I would drown in it if we tried to swim through all those dead presidents who are likely revolving in their graves as they watch from the other side. The rules set up year after year by Congress since the turn of the twentieth century (when corporations first came en vogue) have now successfully given us banks too big to fail without crushing all the little people underneath their too big feet. In addition, those rules allowed for Walmart to suck up all the air in the retail marketplace making Mom and Pop slaves to their stores when they used to own their own small corner store that served their neighborhood loyally. And worse than that, those other Walmart-like corporations are now somehow legitimized legally as ‘people’ who are allowed to hold vast resources so that you and I can’t use it to maybe, oh I don’t know, try to cure cancer on our own. It takes resources to try to do stuff. If the corporations and banks have all the resources, you and I can’t do much to build America while we pursue our own lives, liberties, and happiness.

This time around, I felt we needed someone who cared about little people pursuing big dreams. And what did we get for our nominee? We got a super-rich woman who never manufactured anything a day in her life. I digress if I ask where all her money came from, although in truth I’d like to know. Everyone can see that she’s pursuing her own bucket list dreams of White House glory—something she’s been doing since her husband left the White House in disgrace—as she faces one of two things happening in her near future. Either she will deal with a potential indictment from the Federal Bureau of Investigation before she loses the faith of the American people, or she’ll celebrate a presidential victory where her first day in office will be a long discussion not about us little people but rather about how she avoids impeachment from Congress on day two. And that discussion about what is good for America? That will never happen because she’ll be too busy dealing with legal woes.

How is it that she was even allowed to qualify to run?

The Donald

I like funny people. I mean, I really like them a lot. I’ll happily get in trouble for not getting my schoolwork turned in if it means someone on TV made me laugh out loud. And, I’ll be the first to admit that I laughed out loud when I saw Donald Trump give out Lindsey Graham’s cell phone on the national news. He had my attention.

At first, while he wasn’t my number one pick for the GOP nominee, I gave The Donald the benefit of the doubt that he really isn’t a racist. I think we have to be careful how we throw names like that around, and wait until the shoe really fits. I’d like to believe that he is just the most inarticulate buffoon ever to run for office. I can tell you I never really believed he would get the nomination.

Who did I want? I rather liked Rand Paul for the job. He seemed calm…and he too was pretty funny, but you had to watch YouTube to see that side of him. Dr. Paul also seemed like he had great plans for our country, would keep us out of wars, and I remember liking his tax plan. It was a simple percentage. Flat. In short, everybody would have to pay their fair share, and their fair share was pretty easy to understand. And I remember one debate moment in particular where he was even fair to the Donald while the Donald wasn’t all that fair to him. I liked that about him, and I vaguely remember going to a Ron Paul rally and babysitting for nine hours while my mother helped lead the effort for Minnesota to pick him in 2012 for the GOP nomination. But that aside, in short, I enjoyed Rand Paul’s personality, and I wish he had been the Republican nominee just as much as I wish Bernie Sanders had received the Democratic nod.

But Dr. Paul didn’t get picked by voters just like Bernie Sanders somehow fell short. How did they both fall short? That’s a research paper for later. For now, suffice it to say that somehow, after a fateful caucus night in Iowa where people literally could be seen worldwide casting their ballots for the U.S. presidency in AMC popcorn buckets, Donald Trump was picked…second. And then in New Hampshire, those people picked him first. From there, the Trump train left the station and Little Marco and Lyin’ Ted couldn’t do a thing about it no matter how hard the Mitt Meister temper tantrum-ed on the television.

And now that the GOP has him, he stands at the final hours about to lose the general election to a woman so crooked she makes Lyin’ Ted look more like “Truthy” Ted. I can’t even begin to really recount for you how the Republicans wound up with Donald Trump as their nominee. It’s a bit of a blur. Name recognition? Maybe. Quite honestly, I just don’t get it. I think I’d rather go do calculus homework than try to even think about it more.

And yet, on the eve of this most important election, where the future of the Supreme Court for the next twenty-five years is on the line, I question if America wouldn’t be better off with an inarticulate reality TV star who has no policy experience to speak of.

I can’t believe I just wrote that.

Conclusions…

When I think about the sick (and not in the good way, people) choice facing voters this political season, I try to see myself with a paper ballot sitting in front of me like I saw my Mom sit in front of one at our kitchen table. I watch myself open it, lay it flat, and pick up a pencil to mark my pick. I see the names before me, and I think about what comes next if I pick one or the other.

I imagine what it looks like with The Donald in office. I can see him apologizing a lot for not knowing how things work in Washington DC. Then I can see him denying he did anything wrong, blaming Congress, blaming Meghan Kelly, blaming anyone, but it won’t be blaming himself. Occasionally, he’ll get the right answer even if his discussion on the subject is so wrong an Algebra teacher wouldn’t give him partial credit.

But at least on day two they wouldn’t try to impeach him, with success a virtual certainty. And as much as I don’t like what he says about people, as much as I think he’s frankly possibly the biggest jerk EVER…

…at least Congress probably isn’t going to try to impeach him.

The issues facing Hillary at this point are not just about an illegal private server. She’s likely facing criminal charges for lying under oath to FBI agents about it. In the end, that’s what got her husband impeached, but what he lied about to me was for a whole lot less. I don’t care that he lied about cheating on his wife to somebody—and yet, that got him impeached. I do care that Hillary Clinton doesn’t think the law applies to her, and that’s why she set up the server in the first place. She knew the rules, and she didn’t care. And worse now, she knew that she had to tell the FBI everything about the server, but she thought she could get away with lying some more.

That’s not good for America. What else is she going to lie to us about?

And you know what? I have to believe that in the end a lot of people are thinking about it just like I am. At least I hope they are taking it this seriously, and really thinking about what happens next before they pick. Having scandal after scandal, lie after lie, won’t get the bridges (maybe) fixed. It won’t (maybe) get a budget that’s in line with what Americans can afford to spend. It won’t (maybe) give the people at least a little more in resources so they can somehow scrape together enough money to pay for their dreams.

Will Donald win? God help us.

How about a do over?

Sources:

Author’s note: I really hope everybody would go learn more about Elizabeth Warren and Rand Paul. They are the kind of future leaders who we need. You can find an article or two I’ve written about them in old iGlobe issues. In the meantime, check out these youtube videos:

Elizabeth Warren on banking: https://youtu.be/xJhkX74D10M

Rand Paul on his tax plan: https://youtu.be/MnDd_M7R6eE

Elizabeth Warren speech on Donald Trump: https://youtu.be/FACAend5Vfc

Rand Paul on America’s Issues today: https://youtu.be/ErYJlibPB5s