Recently, I had somebody ask me why I haven't been as vocal, whether in person, on social media, or on The Odyssey itself, about the presidential election. The assumption by many is basically, "surely, as a political science major, you must have an opinion, and you must have a desire to be vocal about it." Well let me just say this: yes I have an opinion, and no, I no longer feel a need to be vocal about it. Why, you might ask? My opinion of our presidential election is the exact reason that I no longer wish to be vocal. My opinion, in the simplest of terms: I am downright ashamed.
Yes, you heard it right. I am ashamed of the entire presidential race. Where we once had great leaders, regardless of party, such as Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and numerous others, campaigning and showing the nation that they can be the president we needed, now, we have watched as our presidential election, the most sacred part of our democracy, become a circus. Not even a circus, a circus side show that has long since garnered any laughs. On one side, we have an egotistical megalomaniac who puts his foot in his mouth every time he opens it, and on the other side, we have an untrustworthy, over-ambitious Washington insider who seems to leave behind a trail of corruption wherever she goes, but insists that we should trust her. Just think about this for a second: two of the most disliked people in our country have become the presidential nominees in our country. We might as well just give the presidency away if we are not going to elect candidates we actually like.
Beyond that, we have reached a point in the history of our nation where it is no longer about trying to get the entire population of the country to support you and vote for you, but rather, candidates target specific groups in the hopes of JUST BARELY reaching 270 electoral votes. In recent years, have we seen a president get the support of the vast majority of the country? No. Fun fact, the largest popular vote margin in the history of the popular vote is 26.2 percentage-points, a respectable margin to say the least. Know which president it was that garnered that many popular votes over his opponent? Take a guess. Kennedy? Wrong. Roosevelt? Wrong. Reagan? Wrong. Obama? Wrong. Ready for this? It was Warren Harding in 1920, best known for the Teapot Dome Scandal. Is it just me, or is this insanity? We have allowed ourselves to simply vote on party lines and support the ridiculous behavior of our political parties, to the point that its rare that any president gains any more than 55 to 60 percent of the popular vote. This is insanity.
America, all I am saying, is that when we decide that we are going to complain about the state of our country, complain about our presidents, complain about our government, we need only look at ourselves, because we do not have a high enough voter turnout, we do not cooperate with each other enough, and we allow ourselves to be taken in by hollow promises and flashy showmanship. No longer do our leaders have to show how they are going to solve the nations issues, they only have to get enough attention and throw enough mud at the other candidate to win. Our election process is a disgrace to the legacy of democracy that our Founding Fathers, not to mention millions of soldiers, have given to us as citizens. It is time that we cut the crap, stop the circus, put our foot down and say no more.
Until such a time that we finally stand up and call out our leaders and the political parties for their disgusting and disgraceful behavior in one, united American voice, we will continue to see the Donald Trumps and Hillary Clintons of the world running for president, and I will continue to be ashamed of our election process until we finally raise our standards for potential presidents.
