Please for the love of whatever deity you may (or may not) believe in, stop asking me about the election!

As a double major in Communications and Political Science, you may think that it would be my favorite thing to talk about. Trust me, it's not. At this point, I am lucky that my eyes have not rolled out of my head after watching the advertisements and debates, listening to the speeches, and reading the stories.

So, you are probably wondering why. Why do I not want to talk about something that provides a perfect, real-life intertwining of both of my majors?

The answer is simple. I am sick and tired of people asking me about it, only to try to change my stance. The thing is, I see through the advertisements and the rhetoric, I know why things are working the way they are. I am also embarrassed that the election has come down to the candidates that it has.

Let me break this down to as a-political as I can possibly get it, which, coming from a family filled with strong, opinionated folks, can be very difficult.

1) The two-party system was something that the Founding Fathers warned about in the Federalist papers. If you want to see the effects, look at the stalemate that happens with legislation when a president is one party and the legislative branch is made up of another.

Also, from a Communications perspective, it creates a greater polarization in the media. In short, the more polarized things are, the harder it is to find a middle ground. Media trends indicate that audiences love binaries, which is see in the portrayal of the good guys and the bad guys in sports, movies, and even some news stories.

2) Protest voting will not work. Look at your favorite reality shows. Say we have contestants A, B, and C. If you vote for C, because you can not stand A or B, more often than not, they will split the vote with the second most popular contestant (Let's use B for our example.), leading to a victory for contestant A. I know it is up to each individual, but that is just my personal stance on protest voting.

This includes not voting. If you hate contestants A, B, and C, not voting ensures the victory of A. By picking the contestant that you hate the least, you give contestant B or C a chance that they might not have without your vote. Again, this is of course up to the individual.

3) This election has left us, the people, with a choice of two different types of slime. One slime is a product of the political machine, facing various allegations of corruption and lying under oath. The other slime is a product of the money machine, meaning that they came from money and have known nothing but money. Possibly because I am not a math major, but I personally do not consider $1 million to be a "small" loan. This slime also has faced numerous allegations of tax fraud, sexual assault, and poor ethics, both in business and in a personal life.

Long, rant-ish story short, this election makes my head want to explode. If I think about it for a particularly long time, I get a lovely headache. As someone who suffers from migraines, please do not make me think about this election for any longer than I have to. Don't make some poor soul clean up bits and pieces of my head when it explodes. Please just stop asking me about the election. I just want it to be over.