Seriously?
There must have been a time in U.S. history when debates between presidential candidates made sense. Today — this election — is not that time.
The two major political parties have wildly differing platforms that seem largely focused on disagreeing with one another. Neither is bringing anything new to the table.
Republicans seem to be largely reactionary. They are against progress, change, and progressive ideas. In the Republican worldview, everyone should be white, Christian, and male. Women should be relegated to the home (presumably popping out babies), abortions should be illegal, and men should be Manly in some intangible way that suggests they are all the Hulk. Marriage, in their worldview, is reserved between opposite genders, of which there are exactly two — anyone suggesting any kind of a spectrum or anything deviating from “man” and “woman” is clearly not from this political party. In terms of economics, Republicans strongly believe that the rich should get richer and that this will somehow magically lead to more jobs. The poor are essentially fucked.
Democrats are just trying to win elections. Rather than being progressive and on the cutting edge of social justice, they are mostly middle-ground and not really willing to rock any boats. They aren’t pushing for expanding Planned Parenthood or securing abortion rights — at best the status quo is fine. They seem to take this stance on almost everything. They might be all right with current taxation but none have suggested that we could do more with more taxes from those aforementioned rich. There’s no expectation of progress, of improvement with this party. Although, in terms of lesser evils, at least they’re not trying to return the country to the eighteenth century.
And maybe there’s Bernie — who is so far left that even the Democrats are giving him the evil eye — and yeah, he has a lot to say. But he is not the face of Democrats, and he may never be. Even if he somehow became that face, if he was elected president, one man cannot change the direction of this country alone.
Meanwhile, the rest of the modern world is looking at us like we’re all lunatics. People routinely tell us how sorry they are that we live in what they perceive to be a horrible shit hole. They point to lack of happiness, mass shootings, and horrible maternity survival rates, not to mention a distinct lack of paid sick leave. From where parts of Europe are standing, we’re half way to our own grave. Those silly Americans with their borders and their perpetual distrust.
It’s ridiculous that in the 21st century, at a time when prosperity for all is within reach, when we have the manpower, technical expertise, and scientific backing to feed and clothe the entire world, we’re here. We as the human race. We as the United States of America!
We can rise above all this. And I think, we should.
