Clingon vs. TrumpE.T.
Two aliens compete for presidency of US
If I were an American citizen, I would be frightened of the 8th November. D-Day, Judgement day, final battle of the War of Worlds. Democrats and Republicans, and their generals in the final clash. Different galaxies and the two most weird creatures that can stand against each other.
One is the first woman in the history nominated for this position. By coincidence wife of Bill Clinton, who was president of the United States for 2 terms between 1993 and 2001. Former Secretary of State. She knows what is it about and she has a plan what to do. Fighting for the honor and fame, Mrs. Clinton is a typical Clingon.
Second is a self-claimed successful entrepreneur. His wife is a model, he is 2 times divorced and his only real success is how much words can he produce when he opens his mouth. It's very hard to hear something reasonable and stop the eruption of bragging. He never was in public function, has no plan and his motivation is still a bit mystery to me. Mr. Trump must be E.T. because he's just pointing finger, but otherwise what he says does not make much sense.
I am not here to tell you who is the better candidate. Everybody who has the right to vote is able to make an informed decision by himself/herself. I want to point out how differently we evaluate the candidates and how content is disappearing and is replaced by marketing, which is now the trend worldwide. Is that the dusk of democracy?
Why do I care about who will be next American president? Living in Hong Kong, coming from the Czech Republic, it could seem that it does not affect my world. But the opposite is the truth. United States is, whether you like it or not, one of the most important countries in the world. It is the international peace keeper and world balancer for the type of lifestyle I enjoy. Arguably, they often shift things so they can benefit from them, but I see it as a fee for all the positive they bring.
The US is leading the efforts to wipe out all nests of danger that threatens our society. 150k of their military personnel is stationed in foreign countries (and just for comparison, the whole Czech army is around 20k people). Their word is true.
They are very important for the international diplomacy, helping in negotiations between parties that are decades in conflict, lowering the number of nuclear weapons in the world and keeping eyes on those who want to get them trying to offer something else.
They are one of the biggest investors into research and development which helps the whole world to progress in many fields.
They are important for the worldwide economics, trade and much more than I can list.
They are by far from being perfect, but still I am glad that there is such a strong country with values like the Unite States.
They are the stable piece in very fluctuant times and how US will react on future events is significant. In the end all the important decisions go to president, as commander and chief and it will make big difference, if Clingon will first call her friends in Wall Street and asks about what will suit them, or if TrumpET fires nukes without asking a question. It affects us all!
The system in which I have lived most of my life works a little bit differently than the American one in terms of evaluating our politicians. Our system is basically pardoning everything that is not punishable by law (unless you are in position where you can actually bend the law) and that you are able to somehow explain to your party and publicly or just let it be.
Most of our voters seem to have a very short memory not only about the things that happen recently, but also many years ago. We just don't count it into the current fitness to be elected, with exception of being member of the party or even cooperation with State security in the communist era — that makes it hard. We also care very less about the politics, because most people are disgusted by it (mostly the younger generation). They are being promised a change for a long time, but the same people are there, doing the same ugly thing and voters just resign.
On the other hand, the American system is expecting from the publicly active persons that they have never done any mistake in their life and if they did, they should not run for the position they are, or resign on the position they have.
Both systems are in my view too extreme and produce bad results. In the first mentioned even serious offenses against moral are pardoned, in the second one you should decide as a baby that you're going to run for president and act all life without mistakes. But without them you just don't learn.
Content is disappearing from the elections worldwide. New media and the way how people consume them changed the politics completely. Just decades ago people cared about the program of the politicians, their values, short term and long term goals.
Now everybody is just trying to say whatever pleases the group of voters they need to reach to, promises are being made like eye blinks. But then nothing happens and you hear only reasons why it is suddenly not possible to keep those promises or how we understood it badly and it was meant differently.
I don’t want to defend TrumpET but your privacy is your privacy and making a topic from a private talk that he made more than 10 years ago is just a nonsense. If he did not know that he is being recorded in the bus, it’s highly unfair to record it and publish it in such a crucial moment and then spend days to talk about it on all channels. The content of the speech and his age when he did it is frightening, no argue about it. But does it make him worse candidate in terms of the office? Simply no. But media made that happen.
The same goes for Clingon. She had one weak moment, in a campaign, that will be hard for well trained young athletes, caught on tape without her consent. Instead of getting time off, which will be quite normal and publicly accepted, she was being targeted as unfit for presidency because of health issues. By whom? You have one guess. Yes, it was media that made it happen.
People do mistakes, people fail, but the important thing is how they recover and proceed. How they learn from it. If you look back in history, there were many personalities that had much bigger flaws, strange or even repulsive habits then these two candidates. But were also able to lead their nations in unexpected ways, which in long term proved their genius.
In a time where everything is just about marketing and not about content, where words are more important then goals, where money means more than your experience and where you must play dirty to have a chance to succeed, it's logical that the best candidates are not willing to go through the elections and we are given just bad options to choose from.
Instead of looking at old videos, pools and history, we should look at the potential of candidates. Don't listen to media that some party is too small to be elected or let them to shift our minds by unimportant events. And of course support the change, which starts by each one of us — to be active in the political life. To try make things better for others and thus for us as well.
Presidential elections in US are a clash between a populist and a member of establishment. Let's hope that the future elections bring better options to choose from. And let the alien who wins rule the White House gently.
