Post by Nightmare on Nov 15, 2016 3:38:10 GMT -5
Image Courtesy of www.mapsofworld.com
This is probably the most controversial topic of 2016, if not recent US history in general.
The race for the White House between Donald J. Trump and Hillary R. Clinton has been heated and full of political strife to say the least.
In one corner, we have the Republican nominee, Donald Trump. A businessman worth several billions of dollars who became a household name in the 2000s through his reality TV Show "The Apprentice" and became well known in political circles across the aisle for his outspoken criticism of President Obama. Donald Trump was on the receiving end of an astronomical amount of criticism himself for the entirety of his bid for the presidency due to his blunt points of view, unrefined speech, and total disregard for political correctness (a force that has strongly dictated the way politics is conducted and the news is reported since the early 2000s at least.) His willingness to tackle hot-button issues such as illegal immigration have caused more extreme critics to label him a racist, and comments he had made to (and about) certain women have caused many to label him a sexist, two nasty accusations he had repeatedly flung at him over and over through the course of his presidential bid.
In the other corner, we have the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Her first debut in the national spotlight came in the 90s due to her role as first lady to President Bill Clinton. Following Bill Clinton's presidency, Hillary Clinton took over a Senate seat in New York, and eventually went on to run for the presidency in 2008. After losing a hard-fought primary to Barack Obama (who ultimately won the presidential election in 2008) she became President Obama's Secretary of State, a position she held until the end of President Obama's first term before being replaced by John Kerry in 2012. Hillary Clinton was no stranger to astronomical amounts of criticism as well: Her bid for the presidency in 2016 was plagued by accusations that she had stolen the Democratic nomination from her opponent Bernie Sanders with the help of close friends and supporters within the Democratic National Committee (the DNC), allegations that came to light following the release of tens of thousands of e-mails hacked from the DNC's servers and made public by the organisation Wikileaks. Further troubling her campaign were controversies over her handling of the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Libya as Secretary of State, as well as a looming threat of possible criminal prosecution for much of her campaign due to an FBI investigation into her alleged mishandling of classified material by using a secret but unsecured e-mail server during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Already, we can see the hot mess this election season was in for.
Both candidates ran strongly negative campaigns against each other: Donald Trump repeatedly engaged in Twitter wars with Hillary Clinton and her supporters, as well as with members of the media who reported on the news in ways he didn't like. Hillary Clinton repeatedly called Donald Trump unsavory names, labeling him a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, xenophobe, really just about any nasty name that you can think of, and her insults didn't stop at Donald Trump himself, going so far as to describe "half" of Donald Trump's supporters as "deplorable" and "irredeemable". Both candidates likened the other to the Ku Klux Klan, and promised the country that they would suffer ruination if their opponent was elected.
Donald Trump focused his attacks on not only Hillary Clinton and the democrat party, but also on the media for allegedly spinning the facts in favor of his opponent, and on the Republican party for refusing to support him despite winning the nomination for the party's presidential bid. The media reported on the election and new polls surfaced every couple of days, and damn near every single credible poll out there showed Hillary Clinton in the lead (if only by a little) nationally.
Image Courtesy of fox6now.com/
After months of the American people being subjected to a campaign rife with name calling and criminal investigations, election day finally came. And the results were stunning to say the least.
Despite being the underdog for the entirety of the election cycle, and the prospect of electing the first female president of the United States being a huge driving factor behind the Clinton campaign, Donald Trump enjoyed a comfortable victory on election night. Donald Trump not only captured all of the traditionally Republican states, he also captured three huge swing states (Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio) as well as, much to the surprise of everyone watching, flipped three traditionally Democratic states (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.)
The Trump victory shocked the nation as a whole, with his supporters enthusiastically celebrating, and his more extreme detractors taking to the streets and participating in protests and riots.
Due to the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote (by as of my writing this nearly 800,000 votes) a discussion as recently begun in regard to the necessity of the US's Electoral College (which due to its structure gave Donald Trump the presidency despite Hillary Clinton earning more votes overall.) But that's a discussion for another thread.
With all of the introductory facts out in the open, I'd like to share some of my own thoughts and open the floor to discussion.
My thoughts...
I think this election was less about Donald Trump and more about sending a message to the status quo in American politics.
Donald Trump was without a doubt inflammatory and unpresidential for much of his campaign (and even before he began running.) He was a highly unpopular candidate and had no experience holding any elected office. He didn't know how to present himself nicely like a politician should, nor did he pretend that he did.
And that's exactly why people were attracted to him. Not because he was mean, or loud, or unpresidential. But because he wasn't a politician. I believe the American people have grown sick and tired of double-talking politicians who get up on stage, smile and kiss a baby and promise you everything under the sun, and then walk home with an armful of money from their donors back to their nice little elected office so they can break all their promises and work on their list of excuses for why they'll definitely keep their promises this time if you re-elect them.
Donald Trump wasn't a politician. The fact that he wasn't made him more relatable. The fact that he didn't talk like one made him more relatable. The fact that he was already worth billions of dollars and had an empire of his own meant he couldn't be bought: He didn't need the money from high-profile donors, he had all the money he could ever need, and he made it with his own two hands. And all of that made him appear more trustworthy. And the more that career politicians within both the Democrat and Republican parties alike criticised him, the more attractive he became. The fact that so many of these establishment politicians were afraid of him enticed the American people, and made Donald Trump more appealing.
Putting aside politicians for a moment, the American people are sick of the rampant political correctness in this country. Everyone is afraid that if they say something they'll offend somebody and it'll label them some nasty name. I think it frustrates people, but they're too afraid to say anything about it because it might make others view them negatively. The fact that Donald Trump didn't walk on eggshells when he spoke and was willing to be blunt and unapologetically direct drew people to him, and the more the political left criticized him for that way of speaking, and the more names he was called because of it, the more support it got him. When you live in a society where even the smallest criticism of the first black President is enough to label you a racist, the word gets tossed around a lot. And when all of the people out there that were wrongly called a racist or a bigot or any other horrible name saw Donald Trump suffering the same attacks and rising above them, it brought those people closer and closer to him.
All of these ways Donald Trump defied the status quo drew him closer to the American people.
And if we stop and look at Hillary Clinton, she is the embodiment of all that people see wrong with American politics.
She's unaccomplished outside of politics (I would argue even within politics, but I digress) she's made millions of dollars giving speeches just because she's famous. Through her handling of the private e-mail server scandal and the mislabeling of the attack on our embassy in Benghazi she proved that she's willing to lie to the American people and that she believes herself to be above the rules everyone else has to follow. When the FBI director James Comey came out and gave a statement saying that Hillary Clinton lied to congress and broke the law, and that others in the same position as her would be prosecuted, but he still didn't recommend moving forward with prosecuting her case, the Clinton campaign let out a sigh of relief. But all the American people saw was that Hillary Clinton is apparently above the law.
That's not even mentioning the pay-to-play scandals surrounding the Clinton Foundation, Hillary and her family's (supposed) non-profit charity that e-mails released by Wikileaks reveals took astronomical donations from foreign countries during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, supposedly for the purpose of getting preferential access or special treatment from her. Or as Wikileaks revealed, efforts by Hillary Clinton's friends in the DNC to sabotage Bernie Sander's campaign during the primaries for the Democratic nomination (which included leaking debate questions to the Clinton campaign in advance.) Or toward the end of the election, videos released by Project Veritas showing active attempts to suppress Republican votes on the part of those associated with the Clinton campaign, or others affiliated with the campaign paying people to attend Donald Trump rallies and incite violence (which the Clinton campaign and the media repeatedly pointed to the fights at Trump rallies as evidence that Donald Trump and his supporters were violent and/or dangerous people.)
Hillary Clinton had many supporters who were either too enamored with her to see her as doing any wrong, or were so disgusted with Donald Trump that nothing Hillary Clinton could have done would have made her look bad in comparison. But while the hardcore Democrats felt that way, many many more Americans looked at her and just saw a textbook example of a corrupt politician.
So at the end of the day, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton weren't on the ballot. For many Americans, they were voting either for or against the established order. And the election results show a clear distaste for the status quo. Hillary Clinton's defeat signifies the defeat of all the career politicians who have forgotten that they work for the people, not the other way around. A defeat of all the politicians that think they're better than everyone else, who think they can get away with doing whatever they want and making empty promises to fill their pockets. And that kind of defeat has both Republicans and Democrats in Washington alike trembling in their boots.
Donald Trump's election is the beginning of a movement where Americans can reclaim control over the control of their country and turn their backs on career politicians who lie and cheat to gain control and call people names to intimidate them into staying silent.
Or not. Maybe President-Elect Trump will turn out to be yet another politician talking out his ass. That remains to be seen. We'll see if he delivers on any of his promises, we still have two months before he's officially inaugurated and takes office.
I think I've said enough for now. What are all your guys' thoughts on this year's election? Did I say anything you disagree with? Let's get a dialogue going.
Chiken Nuggit 
