I had told myself I wouldn’t do an article on the election until it’s over, as the web is flooded with them. After reading through a decent many of the articles covering the election on the Odyssey, I decided I would write one. So, here we go.

I have to believe that I am not the only person who is getting tired of every other ”news” article published on each of the respective candidates, hastily devolving into bashing one, or deifying the other. I also have to believe that I am not the only one who finds themselves in the dark about either’s actually policy, and I do my best to follow the news.

Each candidate has been turned into this, group-polarizing caricature of the values they claim to represent, and people love it. Which is why, you can’t scroll down the Odyssey’s homepage, without seeing the likeness of both of the presidential contenders, in equal measure. I understand being up to date with the political system in America -- hell I even understand humanizing the candidates with personal trivia or jabs. But what we have here is neither of those options. What we are doing now, is something like, watching a train wreck at a very personal and intimate distance, and all commenting on the shrapnel whizzing by with some mixture of surprised amusement and misplaced disgust.

We watch with bated breath to see what new form of repulsion will be inflamed this week, only to forget it, and latch on to the next, pardon my language, superficial bullshit issue, days after. The current candidates are, more than ever, being elected purely, on the image they groom and primp to maintain, they represent a brand. Congratulations Capitalist America; you managed to privatize democracy! And personally, I want no part in it. I want no part in the serializing of each newfound scandal and slip-up, because that is what news journalism has become. How is it, that young people went from writing anti-war thoughtful articles, to, well this,

I get it, the millennials have a gift for making anything ironic, unfortunately that gift has left us blind to the ugly truth that this situation was ironic before we even walked in the proverbial door, now all we’re doing is trivializing the very principles this country was founded on. I don’t want to “Make America Great Again,” and no, I’m not “with her.” I'm with whoever has serious plans to bring back real journalism.