Regardless of your political affiliation, it’s no secret that this year’s election has been a bit of a mess. For a majority of the staff here, this is our first time voting in the presidential election, yet many of us are already looking forward to 2020. Though regardless of how we feel about the presidential candidates, there is no excuse to ignore our civic duty by refusing to vote. As depressing as it is to think about who could possibly be our next commander in chief, there are congressional and local elections that may arguably be more important to the next four years.
There is a lot of blame to go around for how we ended up with Clinton and Trump as our choices. The Republican Party started out with so many different candidates to choose from, unfortunately they were all vanilla except for Trump. So as the establishment GOP is split between the normal candidates, Trump continued to gain steam from anarchists and people who were tired of the governmental “norm.”
The Democrats had Clinton penciled in from the get go, so when scandals involving her health and her email server came up, the only person they could find to oppose her was democratic-socialist, Bernie Sanders, who revolutionized anyone 22 or younger, but failed to reach a mass audience.
So now we sit here with two very uninspiring candidates leading our two major parties, but what about the third party candidates? This would’ve been a fantastic year for the Libertarians or the Green party to establish themselves as legitimate contenders, if they could produce the right candidates. Unfortunately both parties were stuck with doofs who appear uneducated on the issues and appear just as unqualified as the above candidates.
Maybe it’s time we recognized that the system we have isn’t working. We’re with a system of career politicians who aren’t representing the interests of their districts or the american people, but of themselves and their selfish agendas.
As you prepare to go out and vote today, we at the Collegiate urge you to vote your conscious and be steadfast in what you believe in. Whether you fully believe in Trump or Clinton, or you’re going to write in “Jean Goodnow” because you can’t pick somebody, be confident.
No matter how down this political cycle makes us feel, we can’t just give up on it. We the people have the power to change our world and our government in particular. If you don’t like the way something is done, get involved and change it from the inside. If you hate the way something is being run, then go run it yourself. As frustrating as this election has been, lack of participation is a big reason we’re in this mess.
