Cancel Everything
Just thinking about the 2016 Presidential Election depresses me more than the four essays I had to write for midterms this week. The fact that the choices for the Office of the President of the United States have boiled down to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is appalling. Not to mention that the Libertarians have Gary Johnson, who does not know what Aleppo is or any world leader for that matter, as their nominee, but let's face it. He has no chance of winning. The actual threat facing our nation is that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is poised to become President of the "Free World."
In the last week, a tape of Trump boasting about sexual assault have surfaced and multiple women have accused him of sexual assault. The list is ever growing. He issued an awful apology and went on to dismiss his comments as 'locker room talk.' I may not be an athlete, but I grew up around a lot - my brother played both football and basketball and our house was basically a locker room at time with the amount of friends he would have over. Never in my life have I heard them speak of women the way Donald Trump has. Republicans are just beginning to be offended by his comments about women, and it most definitely has to do with his disrespect for a married white woman. A woman who belongs to a man.
And clearly the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. A 2013 interview recording of Donald Trump Jr. was uncovered by BuzzFeed in which he states that if women are unable to deal with the harassment that has become so ingrained in the workforce, they do not belong in the workforce. He tells them they should become kindergarten teachers because “you can’t be negotiating billion-dollar deals if you can’t handle, like, you know.” A 2011 tweet that Trump Jr. recently deleted sounded quite similar to his father's remarks about fame making it acceptable to assault women. It asserts that Sugar Ray singer Mark McGrath can “sexually harass the hell out of anyone” because he is attractive.
What Donald Trump says in the Access Hollywood interview with Billy Bush nails the essence of what rape and sexual assault is all about - power and dominance. Sexual violence against women is about male dominance over them and assertion of masculinity. Trump attempted to do this again at the second debate when he hovered over Hillary whenever she answered a question. He is a toddler in a grown man’s body and was completely annihilated by Samantha Bee on her politically charged TBS show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.
Hillary Clinton is no saint, either. Nor do I relish the thought of endorsing her. This is my first presidential election and I cannot in good conscious not vote. Benghazi, her email scandal, her ever-changing political stances, amongst other things do not make Hillary Clinton my first choice for the 45th President of the United States. I sincerely want to cry when I think about what I have to do November 8, 2016.
I received my Vote by Mail ballot when I went home this Friday for a long weekend and it pains me to look at it. I know what I have to do to not live in a dictatorship that does not allow women to vote. Personally, I think we should just cancel this election. Barack Obama can continue to be president until the United States gets itself together. Seriously, cancel everything. This election is a joke of the worst caliber. It’s depressing to think about having to vote for one of them. We need a competent presidential candidate.
