The election of 2016 is reminiscent of what would happen if “Jersey Shore” and “House of Cards” had a mutant offspring. And just as a show like that sounds terrifying, the fact that this is the reality of the world we live in is even more so. That said, a few good things are coming from the clown show of 2016.

On both the right and the left, the worst aspects of each side of the spectrum are under heavy fire. On the right, Trump’s bizarre feat of attaining the Republican nomination illuminates the miserable state of the GOP.

In many ways the Republican party has a respectable history based upon self-reliance and family values. With the exception of a few, the GOP of 2016 is a disfigured corpse of that legacy, a cumbersome sack of irrationality in desperate need of evolution. And speaking of evolution, the right’s most glaring incompetence is its inability to consider the value of scientific consensus. Championing ignorance as a virtue is quickly going out of style, as millennials have grown up with access to instantaneous information. Denying anthropogenic climate change at this point is a sacrifice of intellectual credibility, although thankfully many on the right have recently shifted their views (despite the Herculean efforts of big oil lobbyists and the infamous Koch brothers).

Equally annoying as the ineptitude of the scientifically illiterate right is the snobbish, hypocritical portion of the left. Trump’s incendiary campaign has been massively effective in part because many Americans are sick of the artificial, claustrophobic nature of political correctness. While obviously the great majority of his barbaric rhetoric is obnoxious and fallacious, it has served to help push our culture away from distressing about slightly offending some pretentious progressive faction. I am by no means an advocate of hate speech, but I feel that even people like Donald Trump should be able to voice their opinions. Some progressive movements absolutely have merit. But in the case of many, oppression seems to be little more than an imaginary manifestation of victim mentality. If a minority group is actually discriminated against they possess a compelling purpose, but if they are just whining about being offended they will have a hard time crafting a narrative that inspires sympathy from the public.

With the ignorance of the right and the pretense of the left trimmed to manageable levels, I feel there could be significantly more fluid bipartisan cooperation. Also, the numerous scandals of Hilary Clinton and the sometimes humorous, sometimes vitriolic nonsense of Trump have served to engage the public in a profound way. The peculiar circumstances of this election have eroded the average American’s inclination for political apathy. I don’t remember the Facebook of 2012 being nearly as vibrant during the comparatively standard Romney-Obama showdown, as you can’t scroll through your feed in 2016 without a new Trumpian faux pas or shady Clinton allegation.

Millennials are coming to the realization that the establishment is deeply flawed and we have a massive responsibility ahead of us. We must utilize the political interest that this election has generated and demand government transparency so that we can address the great problems of our time in a true democracy.