Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton.
Many, myself included, hoped and prayed that it would never come to this. Unfortunately, with recent installments in the campaigns of their competitors, it would appear that what seemed like a distant, nearly impossible situation has come to fruition.
I’m not going to give you a news update. I do encourage you to follow the news and not to rely on your Facebook friends’ posts for your political updates. Your opinions should be formed based on the facts, not by small changes you make to your friends’ opinions to seemingly fit your own feelings.
I’m not going to whine about the shortcomings and mistakes of our candidates. I won’t pretend any of our candidates, past or present, are perfect. They have felt called to a vocation in which it is impossible to please everyone, but by which everyone expects to be pleased. Our president is expected to be experienced, yet vital. He or she should be kind, yet intimidating.
People seem to like when he or she stands up for their beliefs, but not if those conflict with their own. If he or she is too angry, too kind, too old, too young, too religious, not religious enough, too quick to favor a particular class or too easy to make fun of, he or she is deemed unfit to lead the free world. As we have seen, though, finding anyone who has any inkling of a desire to assume one of the most difficult jobs imaginable often falls into at least one of these categories.
I understand how the current situation may be displeasing. I submitted my first ever ballot a few months ago only to have the candidate for whom I voted drop out within a week. Am I going to stop voting, then? Absolutely not.
The only thing worse than having a president you dislike is having a president you dislike after not participating in the democratic process that gave him or her the job. As President Obama said in a recent graduation speech, “You don’t have to risk your life to cast a ballot. Other people did that for you.” Voting in this country could not be easier. I moved away from my precinct this year, so I applied for an absentee ballot. How long did this take, you ask? Five minutes.
If you could not stand the idea of having one of the two major parties’ candidates in office, vote for a third party. It is possible, if we split the parties, to have a third party president. In 1971, the 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It states that no person over 18 years of age is to be denied the right to vote on account of age. Thanks to this, college students have a say in who leads our country.
However, this demographic boasts the lowest voter turnout of any age group. In fact, many have come to call the 26th “The Wasted Amendment.” If everyone in this age group voted, do you know the impact we could have? We could make or break this election. We could choose our president. We don’t have to settle for whom the adults choose anymore. We are the adults. We are the ones who will be trying to get our first jobs under this president. We could be getting married and having kids while this president is still in office.
Our lives will be just beginning, and you’d rather sit and wait for other people to decide who will lead your country? Do you understand the ridiculous things the citizens of this country do every day? If you do, why would you ever let them sort this out without supplying your opinion?
Do you want to settle, for the next four to eight years, with a leader you dislike while you didn’t even try to change the outcome? Of course, no matter your efforts, the candidate for whom you vote could lose. But, it is better to try and fail than to not try at all. If you don’t vote, you have no right to be angry about the outcome of the election. Let your voice be heard. Register to vote, and then actually vote. Please.
