By KYLE ADAMS
Staff Writer
There are aspects of our culture that many of us consider to be typical and very prominent in our lives. These are things that we have grown to accept over a period of time; things that we perceive as essential to our daily lives and to our existence.
Our culture also tends to become divided about almost everything imaginable. For example, sports set quite the standard in our culture, from football at the professional and college levels to baseball, basketball, soccer and a lot more.
We have not only grown to accept particular sports over a period of time, but also specific teams and even go so far to have favorite players. At the same time we also have teams that we love to hate; typically the team that usually beats your favorite team.
We despise certain players for the same reason or because of things that they may have done off the field. Now, talking about how sports divide us between our friends is not my intention.
It is merely an example of one of the topics that people tend to thrust themselves into, which creates a standard, not only for what we tend to believe in, but how we respond when those beliefs are challenged.
Over the past year and a half, the political election has torn our country apart. A common consensus is that people just cannot wait for it to be over. Now as strange as it sounds, politics works much like how sports works.
First you choose the values that you believe in, or your sport. Then you pick your team, Democrat, Republican or a third party. Finally you pick you candidate, or your favorite player.
However the dark side has also proven very true in this election as well. Whatever team you choose to be on, the other is your arch nemesis.
Whichever candidate you choose to support, the other is evil. The difference between sports and politics is that while debates about sports tend to be all fun and games, politics take it to an entirely new level that is no longer fun.
That is typically not our fault, but the fault of our two-party system that makes our choices so important.
Both political parties have used fear as a political strategy in this election. The catastrophic results that the other candidate would create almost seem to come out of a video game.
Now maybe the two-party system is to blame, for giving us an immense lack of options, but it has never seemed to be such a big a problem until now.
Maybe that is because we have never had two candidates who seem to be so flawed. Or maybe it could be because of how each candidate and their party are choosing to run their campaigns.
Instead of Trump and Clinton using team loyalty to expand their base, they are using fear and hatred to get people just to despise to other, and doing nothing to talk about the issues.
It seems as if every conversation is about how the other is unfit to hold office or why they should be in jail. In fact, a common crowd chant at Donald Trump rallies is “lock her up,” referring to Clinton’s email controversy.
Now this is not started by one individual person, this is the way Donald Trump chooses to run his campaign and how he chooses to get his base fired up.
Trump has said in the debates that he would assign a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s case. Some may ask why this is a problem.
Well, the precedent is the problem. In a democracy, candidates don’t threaten to lock up their opponent, or insinuate that if they get elected they will attempt to prosecute the other. That is not how democracy works and it is not the only attempt at undermining democracy that has been made in this election. Before Donald Trump entered the Republican primaries, the most involvement he had in politics was known as the “birther movement.”
This was a conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, which would disqualify him from being eligible for the presidency. While the conspiracy theory had been completely proven false, Trump continued to use it as a tool nto discredit President Obama.
This has been mainly put to rest, hopefully for good, but it is important to see the road that Trump is on. Currently he has been insinuating that the election is rigged.
Donald Trump has not once taken any blame for any mistakes he has made in his campaign. He either blames other Republicans who do not want to be associated with the things that he says and the media, who apparently nitpick too much of what he says.
Now I’m not an expert by any means, but I am a communications major and from how I understand the media to work, if you don’t want them to talk badly about you, don’t say dumb things. Now he is insinuating that the Clinton campaign and the media have rigged the election. This is the most dangerous comment he has made yet.
If Trump convinces enough people that the election is rigged, what does that do to our democracy? How does that impact other, down-ballot elections?
Donald Trump has made a lot of dangerous comments the past year, but this is by far the most dangerous. I don’t know about everyone else, but I am tired of these conspiracy theories!
Now, onto Hillary Clinton. In my opinion, the things that Clinton says do not bother me too much. She is obviously very intelligent and much more knowledgeable about issues than Trump.
When it comes directly to the issues, I agree a lot more with Clinton. So the question is why is this election not a huge blowout? What stands out to me is everything that Clinton doesn’t say.
During all of the debates the hot topic was whether Trump would take Clinton’s bait and go off-topic. That is her biggest problem. Time and time again she has had the opportunity to be the adult in the room, but just as much as Trump takes Clinton’s bait, Clinton either ignores Trump or says the completely wrong thing.
It is crazy to me the about of surrogates that Clinton needs to vouch for her and to campaign on her behalf.
You could go right down the list: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Bill Clinton and even Chelsey Clinton all make a more convincing argument to vote Democrat then the nominee does herself.
Perhaps the scariest part of this election doesn’t have anything to do about any individual candidate, but the voters and the conversations that we have with each other.
Every day on social media and in person people are torn apart for their beliefs, for showing an ounce of support for a candidate. Most people are hiding who they support out of fear of what their peers will think of them.
Not many people will see it this way, but this is the definition of bullying. With the rise of the political season regular and cyber bullying have grown to new levels and we’ve never seen anything like this election before. Social media provides people with a shield to say things that they would never say in person.
Threats to the lives of each candidate have also increased dramatically the past several months, and to think the only thing that separates us is our ideas. As President Obama said at the Democratic National Convention, “Democracy doesn’t work if we constantly demonize each other.”
While the standard that we have set for our politicians is extremely disappointing, they are literally only two people. The higher priority that we should all have is the standard that we set for each other.
Basic kindness and respect towards other. The ability to respect another person’s freedom of speech and capability to have their own opinion, without fearing radical opposition.
It is one thing to have a conversation about ideas, but it is another to be crucified for having opinions. We all want to be heard, but nobody wants to get hurt. It starts with showing the respect to others that you would want to receive yourself.
Isn’t that the American Standard that we should all expect from each other?
