Ted Cruz has officially dropped out of the 2016 presidential election, paving a clear path for the GOP nomination to go to Donald Trump. This almost ensures that the election will be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
When I first started following the election trail, shortly after all the major nominations announced their candidacy back in June, a good friend of mine from Sweden told me that he was concerned Trump would get the nomination and possibly become the next president. I smiled and explained that Trump wouldn’t last and that the GOP couldn’t possibly endorse him because of his controversial campaign.
Boy, was I wrong!
My Swedish friend’s concern about a GOP-nominated Trump became a reality this week. The fact that Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate, though, is of real importance to the Republican Party. For a party that has recently endorsed more moderate candidates, like Mitt Romney in 2012, Trump represents a radical, and extremely controversial, icon for the party. Considering that the Obama administration’s approval rating has risen to over half (52 percent) in the last month according to recent polling data, Trump’s ability to attract moderate Democrats seems unlikely.
However, the Republican Party is not the only one introducing an extreme nominee during such a crucial election. Recent polls are showing that Clinton is beating Sanders to the nomination by an average of 4.9 percent over the last month. This means that a Clinton/Trump stand-off is becoming a real possibility in November.
Regardless of whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or Libertarian, the fact that the 2016 election may very well force the American people to decide between two polar opposites on the political scale, and between two extremely controversial figures in American society, says something about the way Americans think and, well, vote. The truth is that there are individuals on both sides who seriously hate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Neither figure is a balanced, or really even fair, representation of the political viewpoint of the average American. Both encapsulate something that the other side detests, and both have a questionable history in either business or politics.
The irony in all of this is that the vast majority of Americans are neither radically conservative nor radically liberal: they’re moderates. Splattered across my Facebook feed are posts that declare “Anyone but Trump” or “Anyone but Hillary.” Clearly, there’s no “safe” option; regardless of whether Clinton or Trump becomes the next president, a large portion of the population will be polarized and unrepresented.
So, right now we have a choice: an extremely conservative or extremely liberal President of the United States. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to let anyone come together and actually start solving the problems that our country is facing. In fact, it’s going to do the exact opposite by causing more friction, more frustration, and more distrust on the part of the American people. If we want to build progress, we have to work towards it together. A candidate that is detested by half of the population is not going to be able to do this.
All of this said, the 2016 election desperately needs a moderate, third party candidate to balance out the ballot and appeal to a wider range of voters. Regardless of the fact that third party candidates are much less likely to win a general election, we need someone we can vote for and feel good about voting for. So here’s to hoping that we’ll have a great moderate candidate before November who can build bridges between the American people instead of walls.
