This year’s election has been an absolute disaster on various different levels, from Hillary and her lack of trustworthiness to Donald Trump and his everything. At the end of the day we need a president that we can trust. Although every candidate in this election has flaws, it has gotten to the point where we need to look at who will not make this country worse on multiple levels, and who will make America better. The three frontrunners for residency in the White House have come down to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders. These candidates have many different plans and views for this country.
Let’s start with Donald. Donald Trump is an entrepreneur from New York, New York that became a success in the Manhattan real estate market. He was born into money and was eventually made famous for the reality show "The Apprentice." He has been very unsuccessful in attempted ventures in other fields such as steaks, fashion products, and even an online college. This online college was actually a scheme to steal people’s money, and resulted in multiple lawsuits for fraud. Politically, Trump has no experience. He is using his fame and popularity to gain leverage in the election. His stances on some issues can be considered ridiculous. He wants to deport all undocumented individuals in the United States, which would take 12 years to do completely. He also wants to raise the prices of many produce items. This is because undocumented individuals work in this field. This would be a large blow to the economy. In addition, he wants to build a wall between America and Mexico, which would cost an estimated 8 billion dollars. That is absolutely absurd. How disrespectful to the the Mexicans and the many Mexican-Americans that have been documented in America? I agree that there needs to be strict regulations when it comes to immigrants, but building a wall just creates a physical and mental divide between Mexico and the Untied States. Along with those views Trump has been very racist in the way he speaks about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Who, honestly, wants someone to run this country who is so racist, rude, and unprofessional? Moreover, he wants to ban Muslims from entering our country. Once again, making a decision over a racist stereotype in itself is blasphemous. Muslims have done great things in this country and do not deserve such disrespect.
In addition, Trump believes that marriage is between a man and a woman. He has indicated that the supreme court could issue a ruling to determine the law. I respect his opinion, but from my standpoint, reversing the marriage of same-sex relationships would cause a national crisis. I believe that you should be able to love and marry whoever you please in this country regardless of sexual orientation and race. Finally, his believes that climate change is a hoax. This is possibly the most irrational thing Trump believes. Without going too far into it, the most persuading fact is that 2015 was the warmest year since since 1880, beating the previous warmest year on record (2014) by .23 degrees. I can’t fathom why people keep ignoring the facts. It is downright embarrassing and has the potential to affect the world we live in for generations to come. That stat among others are among the many reasons why climate change is real and if you believe otherwise you are not properly educated or informed. The sad part is I haven’t even touched on Donald Trump’s overall unprofessionalism and rude attitude toward issues. This is not how we want our leader to act. He is not how we want our country to be represented.
Bernie Sanders is a Senator from Vermont from the Democratic party. Bernie Sanders has started a political revolution with young adults and progressive-thinking individuals. There are many reasons why this man should be president. For one, he's going to change wealth inequality in this country. We have more wealth and income inequality than any major developed country on earth. I do agree that capitalism and the achievement of the American dream should be attainable. But I believe it should be achievable for anyone. The top one percent should not have a majority of the wealth. That is just too drastic. More than 16 million children––22 percent of all children––live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level. This is the highest child poverty rate of nearly any developed country on earth. To fix this Bernie would implement a high tax on the highest .3 percent of Americans and invest it into programs that would assist in creating jobs for those who need them. The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire class has rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country. Moreover, he would want to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. This would not only take some Americans who work 40 hours a week above the poverty line, but allow the economy to be revamped. This is because once people are making more money, in principle, they will spend more money. In a consumer-based economy, this is necessary. This is a very important issue going forward when it comes to wages.
Bernie is very proactive about the environment. He believes in climate change, like many educated people do. As I mentioned before, climate change is causing higher sea levels and higher global temperature, and he wants to combat this issue by investing in clean, sustainable energy, accelerating a transition from fossil fuels, and reclaiming our democracy from the billionaire fossil fuel lobbyists. These policies, among others, would allow for the improvement of at least the environmental awareness of climate change. If we became the world leader in environmental issues, we could help other countries learn how to act properly in order to prevent further destruction to our environment. We need to act now and this is one of the most important issues we must get control of for the healthy future of our world.
Finally, the biggest part of Bernie's campaign is the single-payer Medicare for all healthcare system. We are the only developed country in the world that does not provide healthcare as a right, but rather a privilege. We must ensure all Americans can access the health care they need regardless of their income. We need a system that prioritizes the health of working-class families over the profits of insurance companies. We must be able to have a system that gives equal healthcare to all patients regardless of income. This also eliminates the possibility of people being denied of health care because of a list of pre-existing conditions that seems endless. In addition, countries with single payer health care systems show to be living longer as well as not having such a high cost of health care. Professor Gerald Friedman who is a professor of Economics at Umass-Amherst states that private insurance companies competing for clients is an extremely inefficient way to run healthcare. This does have some cons such as increased wait time for general check ups. Overall though, in my opinion, the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to this type of system.
The only part of Bernie's campaign I do not agree with is the free college proposal. This is the idea that all public and state colleges and universities would be tuition-free. The ideology makes sense due to the fact that we need to have the most intelligent workforce in the world, and the fact that our college prices are astronomical and keep increasing. Free college has worked in places like Sweeden and Norway, but I don’t believe that Bernie could generate revenue high enough to make the 70 billion dollars needed to achieve this. I believe that making education more affordable is a very good idea. If he would be able to reduce the cost of education in an economically sound way, I believe many would benefit.
In conclusion, I consider myself an independent politically. I would vote conservative and liberal. But, in my first time voting, I am going for Bernie. I do like conservative Marco Rubio, but he will not have enough leverage to get the GOP nomination. And when it comes to Hillary, I simply do not trust her. She does not have a track record of being incredibly honest. In addition, her husband illegally stalled a polling station in Massachusetts. Aside from some economic ideas that wouldn’t even make it through congress, I am going for Bernie and I hope he can get the democratic nomination.
