Through some miracle, I managed to avoid watching a significant portion of any of the three presidential debates. Because I thought they wouldn't be worth watching? Not at all, considering the first debate averaged a total of 84 million views across 13 news stations I think it is safe to say that it was a very entertaining program to watch. And from what I heard about the other debates I know they were quite the watch as well.
However, I only planned to watch the first debate because the Political Science Association was hosting a debate watch party and invited my American government professor as the guest commentator of sorts.
But as it started, I was still in my dorm room eating because I forgot the PSA was serving pizza at the event. Unfortunately, I failed to anticipate that a large sum of my 400 or so classmates would show up to the event, thus leaving me pizza-less (sad face).
Furthermore, as I walked up to the piano lounge of Lerner hall, where the event was being held, I felt the heat emanating from the mass of students huddled together. At that point, I immediately gave up on attending the PSA event and on watching the debate entirely.
The problem is, I do think keeping up with politics is important when it comes to exercising our right to vote, but I can hardly find the motivation to participate in this spectacle that we are calling the "presidential campaign".
Even without watching it, within moments of it starting I was made aware of how outrageous it was from social media. I did not necessarily want to avoid news of the debate, but since it followed the general pattern of updates for this campaign, I was not inclined to hearing them.
The next two debates followed a similar pattern except for the fact that there was a significant drop in memes and videos that resulted from them. And even though I hate what they say about our country, I can't help but laugh at them because, in truth, they are funny.
I don't think the fact that jokes can be made about our politics on the daily is a bad thing because anything can be joked about on a daily. My problem is that our politics has become the joke. Outside of the current presidential election, politics is not viewed positively in this country and that has a lot to do with how our political system runs itself.
But this isn't necessarily meant to be a critique of our political system. I mean I am far from the most politically active person out there and even though our faulty system is what's motivating me to become more involved I can't help but be bothered by its flaws being my motivation.
However, I have to say I'm grateful to live in a country that has a political system that people can even hope to fix by just being involved. I remember in high school a couple of my teacher would joke about voting for me for president in 30 years. But at this point, I think this current election is a better joke.
I might have to run for some kind of office and keep going higher and higher until I figure out where things get so messed up.
