This election cycle has been a wild experience for me. I have made a large amount of connections, creating friends and interacting with the candidates themselves. John McAfee, Marc Allan Feldman, Austin Petersen, and Jill Stein have all communicated with me one way or another. My interest in politics flourished, and now I’m anxious to see what happens next. To summarize my journey in this election, I began as a simple Bernie supporter. His populist message spoke to me and inspired me to research more. He was one of the first politicians I’ve encountered that seemed to actually believe what they said. Sanders pushed nonintervention foreign policy, battled the establishment, and targeted crony capitalism. When I realized that his monetary policies would be catastrophic on the American economy, I merged over to the right. I voiced support for McAfee or Petersen, wanting a principled Libertarian to champion us to 5%. Alas, Gary Johnson was determined to be the “pragmatist” vote, and he was chosen as the Libertarian nominee. Since then, I have frequently fought for Johnson in my home state of Florida, even though multiple people told me not to, considering the fact that I live in a swing state. I don’t care. I know multiple people that hate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Why should they neglect the ballot because both candidates are abysmal? Why should they remain ignorant to the other options? I shared articles on Facebook, complained about Hillary’s lack of indictment and Trump’s lack of competence, and made fun of the main two by dressing up as them. It was hard defending Governor Johnson. His controversy during the primaries made him unlikeable to many of the party members. For those unaware, Johnson had said he doesn’t believe in the freedom of association and said he was “open to debate” on gun control. Very liberal stances for a pro-freedom candidate. I didn’t mind though. The ultimate blow came with two words: What’s Aleppo? Ugh. Johnson fell in the polls. He was portrayed as an ignorant buffoon by the news networks. It was a hard thing to fight against, but I always said, “I prefer the way Johnson bombed Aleppo than they way Trump or Hillary would bomb it.”
Speaking of the news networks, this election opened my eyes and enlightened me on just how ill informed the populace is, and just how corrupt the media has become. It’s terrifying. As a liberal, I’ve constantly heard attacks on Fox News. As a libertarian, I can still say Fox News is complete garbage that no one should watch, due to its frequent inaccuracies, suspension of logic, and obvious bias. That being said, The Young Turks, CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post… They’re all complete trash. Adjusting evidence and observations to suit their agenda, lying about their enemies, etc. Now, I only use these sources of “information” to get initial observations and their point of view on it. I alternate between them to get everyone’s side. CBS, Secular Talk, and The Jason Stapleton Program are pretty accurate and fine to watch. It all came down to election night. I had switched from believing that Trump had it to predicting a win for Hillary. This is my exact post from a Facebook group: “Hillary's winning tonight. Trump has to keep a hold on the states he has, win all the swing states, and get states leaning towards Hillary. The Weiner scandal occurred after early voting started, and people voted early in historic numbers. If voting numbers are high, we can expect neither Johnson or Stein to get 5%. Johnson will have a larger number than 2012, though, maybe 3%.” Well. I was wrong. Florida goes red. Ohio goes red. Pennsylvania. North Carolina. It takes hours upon hours to get these results, me staying up until 1 AM to hear them. But he managed to do it. Donald John Trump managed to win the election. At least the electoral vote. Clinton won the popular vote, which Johnson only managed to receive 3% of. Two points short of the goal. I won’t lie. I was rooting for Donald Trump to win. Scratch that, I was rooting for him to beat Hillary Clinton. I tweeted, “I don’t want Donald Trump to win. I just want him to beat Hillary Clinton.” Both candidates are liars, having terrible Politifact ratings. Both candidates have flip flopped, from Hillary saying she was opposed to gay marriage until 3 years ago and shifting to the left due to Bernie Sanders, or Donald Trump converting between single payer and free market health care and having an ambiguous relationship with Vladimir Putin. Both candidates are currently being investigated, Donald for Trump University and Hillary for her emails. Both candidates are authoritarian populists who have a sense of entitlement and greed. That being said, Donald Trump is the lesser of two evils. Trump has never been in government, never having a position. He doesn’t know who to rub elbows with. Hillary Clinton has been in state government, Congress, and the White House. She has big corporate donors. She knows how to get things done, and that’s what scares me the most. I agree with her around 20% of the time, and I don’t want her pushing her center-right tyrannical policies through the Republican Congress. You already know none of the Democrats will listen to Trump. Most of the Republicans in Congress have hostility or heavily disagree with Trump, so he won’t get anything done, most likely. Trump has also hinted at more libertarian positions, like getting out of foreign affairs, lowering taxes, etc. I could never vote for Donald Trump. I cannot be responsible for that. I will always vote for the candidate that represents my values and for the candidate I am comfortable representing me. I will prefer a candidate to win over another, I will root them on, but I refuse to support or endorse them. That’s my relationship with the Donald Trump of 2016, mere preference over a woman who has lied, who has climbed, who has manipulated, who has slithered her way to the top. The reaction to Trump winning has been absurd. Riots are happening in large liberal cities. The Canadian Immigration website crashed. There are (currently UNPROVEN) reports of trans youth killing themselves. Communist flags are being flown and Ole Glory is being burned in the streets. People are refusing to say the Pledge and people are crying on Facebook. Guess who the blame is thrown towards? To the Republican Party for letting this be their candidate? Not really. To the Democrats for rigging their primary and making Hillary Clinton, one of the most unlikeable politicians in history, their nominee? Only a few are saying that. No, “privileged white males” and independent voters are being shoved under the bus. Ridiculous. You wonder how the Democrats lost, and then they pull stuff like this. I cannot say how good of a president Trump will be. He could do a complete 180 on his beliefs and be a loveable guy, playing a character just to win. Who knows? We’ll all find out in January. He gave his victory speech, but it wasn’t the usual boastfulness we expect from Trump. He said we, as a collective, need to become a “united people.” He wants us to celebrate “our victory.” He is trying desperately to start the unification process after such a toxic election. Fights are happening in schools, people are rioting. We need to stop. If we elect a smart Congress and apply a level of social pressure on the Trump administration, our country will be fine. We need to chill. Let’s all come together, and enjoy the next four years of memes and the anticipation for Kanye West vs Donald Trump in the year 2020.
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Christopher CaldwellJust some thoughts on current events and such. Archives
January 2017
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