This week, the 2016 presidential election is over with.
I thought I would be relieved about this. I have a countdown in my calendar, and I harped to all of my friends that I could not wait for this mud-slinging circus to be over with.
Yet, somehow, I'm actually kind of disappointed.
I'm disappointed because I'm going to the polls to vote for a candidate that I feel like I know little to nothing about, besides how quickly they can throw an insult. I'm disappointed because this election has shown me how quickly a political party, who pledges unity behind people who fight for a common cause, can come unraveled if they can't get the candidate they wanted. Heck, I'm disappointed because I've seen how political parties will go to the ends of the planet to make sure that the candidates that they DO NOT WANT, do not get the nomination (WikiLeaks, I'm looking at your information).
If you had asked me what I thought would happen in the beginning of the election process, I would have told you that Donald Trump didn't have a chance. I would have told you that Jeb Bush was going to be representing the Republicans because that is what the GOP wanted, and it seemed like only a Bush could fathomably beat a Clinton. I also would have told you that I thought Clinton was going to get the nomination, however Sanders had a fighting chance because his polling numbers were so incredibly high with millennials, a generation that outnumbers any generation before them.
Regardless of what I thought and what actually happened, I can honestly say that this has been the most manipulative, condescending, non-democratic election cycle I have ever seen. Granted, I can only remember three of four, but that isn't the point.
The disappointment that I feel about how Clinton and Trump have acted, both publicly and what has leaked about their private lives, is disturbing to me. It's truly a matter of voting for the lesser of two evils, but the evils are fire and poison.
On Election Day, I will leave my polling station having done my duty as an American citizen. I will be voting in my first election, along with my brother and my father. While I will leave knowing that this nightmare is over with and our next president will be decided within the next few hours, it won't change that this election has been the most controversial, nasty election in the history of our country. It won't change the fact that I am so disappointed in what this election could have been.
