Picking a president is Herculean task. This is part of the reason why we’ve been under “Election Watch” for the past year, the other being that we’re masochists.
It’s a final choice in the direction we want our country to take for the next four years. It’s a time to redefine our values, reexamine our faults and explore how to further complete the ideal that is America. It’s how we want to fit in the puzzle.
So, in this less than linear process the debates are, in not so elegant terms, significant.
The debates are a stage, the stage, where the final candidates begin building what the public will hope turns out to be a better, brighter future. I use hope here due to the knowledge that nobody will know what the final product looks like until its done, an unfortunate consequence of having multiple different perspectives and solutions to the same problems, and we must have faith in the system. If we don’t, what’s the point of eve having the system at all?
If we’ve got no hope, we might as well just let Trump rule over us and be done with it.
So, when the first debate last Monday turned out to be more akin to a WWE cage match than an exchange of policy and ideas, I was less than enthused.
The Donald looked composed, even presidential, in the first fifteen minutes. He was calm, poised and level-headed. And then he flaunted his true colors and transformed from Jekyll into Hyde, spending the rest of the debate screaming, interrupting and allowing his thin skin and temper guide his speak.
Hillary Clinton looked, for the entire time, as I imagine a lizard might look as it tries to imitate human behavior and mannerisms.
And neither of them spent any significant time or effort on facts nor did they ground themselves in the realities of the country they so desperately want to govern. Merely upping themselves and downing their opponent.
Neither of them talked about how some corporations don’t pay any income taxes, neither of them talked about how gun violence is on the rise and neither of them talked about how climate change poses a significant and immediate threat to, well, humanity.
All three of which would have fit the themes of that night’s tête-à-tête between two larger than life personas.
But they didn’t discuss those things. They were concerned with scoring political points.
Tangent: they aren’t opponents. I hate calling them that.
They’re different members of the same army, fighting the same war. They just want a different plan of attack to achieve the same victory. The fact that the two-party system has devolved into a battle between Democrats and Republicans for dominion of the nation is the root of all the problems that plague our government.
Anyway, the debate was bogus. You could practically see the mass grave on the floor between Trump and Hillary where any hope of the salvation of our election process lay.
Sure, we can all stand in awe at how many people tuned in, but this debate was not relevant beyond that excruciatingly superficial award. Did anyone learn anything new about either candidate? I sure didn’t, and I watched the whole thing twice to count Trump’s sniffles.
Seriously, he might be sick. Do you think he can be President if he’s sick? We should investigate.
