The 2016 Presidential Race is a beautiful example of an aggregation of “ignorance is bliss” coupled with a country of people who deem themselves fit to lead a group of people and deem themselves educated enough to understand everything about the entire political sphere. The Presidential Race is great because it emphasizes the true illustration of government; children leading children.
1. It helps us realize the depth of our country’s populous
I don’t think that people truly realize how big a number 318.9 million (according to the 2014 census) really is. That is an immense amount of people all belonging to one nation. With that number there are going to be a vast amount of opinions as well and there is no universal law that says those opinions have to be ethically sound or tethered to our own. This political race has truly shown candidates with hugely varied, or I may even go to the extent of saying, absurd opinions. That doesn’t, however, mean that these so called “absurd opinions” have any less followers adopting them. If you think about views, values, and ethical beliefs, they tend to stem from the society or atmosphere around which you are raised or have spent the most time in. What that also means is just because you are used to the people around you sharing the same, give or take, level of understanding or views, that another society will be the same. If Connecticut which is a fairly small and “Solid Democratic” state as Niraj Chokshi shows in Map: The most Democratic and Republican states, an article written in The Washington Post, is juxtaposed with Wyoming which is a far larger and “Solid Republican State,” then the difference in political opinions, standard of livings, and values will be evidently different.
2. The Presidential Race truly does a fantastic job of bringing the population of our country together… because apparently everyone is a Politician.
For some reason when the Presidential Race begins, everyone decides that they all of a sudden have graduated as a Law and Poli-Sci major from Harvard and think they have the intellectual aptitude to discuss the entire political sphere. What’s even more hilarious is that their outlets of doing so are common social media networks such as Twitter or Facebook. There is no point in a bunch of opinionated 16-year-olds having a heated conversation over a Facebook status against a presidential candidate when 90% of the conversation will most likely be garbage. So if you want to display your keen political sense, try developing it, and researching your facts before you spew them out all over the internet.
3. It allows us to mature and start seeing the world with a little less ignorance
A good chunk of the population is labeling Donald Trump as wrong, immoral, or insensible. His racism devolves all the practices of equality this country embodies, his recent statement on attempting to overturn same sex marriage (obviously even more tailored to receiving a specified groups’ votes) is a clear degradation of the progress the United States is making as a society, and his rash and brutal treatment and classification of Muslims, people of color, and refugees is a strike at the epicenter of the welcoming, mediating, nation this country has been trying to set itself apart as.
Now all of this set aside, let’s take a few things into account.
- Donald Trump has a following
- We can’t ignore the fact that Donald Trump does lead amongst several groups.
- Though Bernie Sanders when put side by side with Trump has a win with 46.8% to 41.5% respectively (Real Clear Politics Poll Averages January 2016), 41.5% is a large number for a guy “apparently” everyone hates
- I also like to point out that according to an article Katie Pavlich, “60% of Americans GOP frontrunner Donald Trump unfavorably.” I love that sentence because it states that Donald Trump is the GOP frontrunner and also states that he is 60% unfavorable.
This guy is just downright disliked as a character, but is still in the lead for the GOP for the race to become the leader of the free world. It’s time we stop assuming that the whole world share’s our perspectives and realize that our values are exactly that, our values, and there are so many people out there who see the world in a different light. Whether you call it ignorance or insight, we are all susceptible to supporting the leaders we feel can do the job right, and amongst that… There will be a difference of opinion.
