The political dissatisfaction has escalated this election. Why is that? Probably has nothing to do with incessant emails from campaigns you accidentally subscribed to or political ads cramming ideology down our throats. Other than that, isn’t the election season fun?!
I mean, come on—don’t you love seeing all the candidates bicker? Republicans fire at Democrats and themselves, and Democrats fire at Republicans and themselves. I know I’m personally glad to see them all tear at each other’s throats.
Let’s look at the Republican debates for example. A candidate would respond to a moderator’s question, and then another candidate would pounce at any possible slip up they had heard. That seems to be Donald Trump’s strong point; he makes a quick snap at a candidate saying whatever came to the top of his head. Usually the candidate under attack would respond by crying.
Then Trump would say, “Get over it,” directly quoted with 100 percent accuracy.
I mean—it’s not like most of these candidates have been in politics and/or speaking engagements multiple times throughout their careers, why would they constantly interrupt each other by breaking conversational ethics? Or why would they easily wither away when anyone challenged them? They wouldn’t and don’t obviously.
In the race currently we have still have John Kasich, a Midwest man—hello! He only seems to be able to win his own home state of Ohio, which isn’t much, but hey—it’s farther than Marco Rubio got I suppose. There’s Ted Cruz, who seems to be cruising up those polls, is close to the lead even with recent statements about his plan for extra police patrols in Muslim neighborhoods. And of course, there’s still the notorious Donald Trump, aka Donald Drumpf. He and his supporters like to think of him as a real wild card kind of candidate while others think his card is more along the lines of the joker among the deck.
Now, we can’t forget about the Democratic debates. We have the most popular people up there, Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, oh yeah—and that one guy stuck in corner, Martin O’Malley.
These candidates are also entertaining to watch. We have Hillary who was usually late to the debates due to being stuck under trial. And we have Bernie who took the extra time to take selfies with his fans (usually teenagers) that all allowed him to take pictures with them because they assumed he was an old man who thought they were his grandchildren. Let’s not forget poor O’Malley who actually left some time ago, but no one seemed to notice.
Hillary and Bernie often comment on their friendship outside of politics—then they quickly turn around in a catfight over who relates to the working class more.
In the broad perspective, I think the “non-traditional” candidates appear to be doing so well because they respond to our dissatisfaction with the political atmosphere of the U.S. I always wonder if I were to complain or be “angry” enough about a certain issue, would a candidate change their position to appease me?
That’s a rough definition for “demagoguery,” isn’t it? That is, a candidate that appeals to popular desire. That word is used as most candidates’ catch phrase for attacking their opponents—even though every politician is trying to appeal to popular demand in some sense because how else are they expected to get far in the race?
Whatever your political affiliation or preferred political candidate may be, keep in mind that every candidate has good points and bad points. And just because someone doesn’t support your candidate of choice doesn’t make that person wrong. Lastly, learn to “take” jokes about your preferred candidate as well as being able to “dish” jokes about other candidates.
Ehron Ostendorf
Copy Editor