We’re reaching the point now in our current election season where everything is on the table. All the problems in the process itself are visible and tangible. This is the chance to fix our broken system, or there might not be another opportunity to fix it.
It’s not doom and gloom, but a necessary observation understanding just how bad things have gotten. The same politicians who gerrymander their districts to make sure they remain in power for the next six years are in charge of determining whether or not they even pass a budget to keep the government running.
Nobody likes our leaders anymore. Nobody trusts them, and frankly, nobody should. This current and previous congress has passed the least legislation of any other time period, according to the Pew Research Center. Gallup polls show them having a bare 14-percent approval rating in September. It was never really high.
And to be perfectly damning, a Princeton study showed that congress does not listen to us, or any percentage of the population’s beliefs. On a chart rating the amount of public support a policy has versus how likely it will be passed, it stays stagnant at a flat 30-percent. A policy that 0-percent of the population supports is as likely as passing as something with 100-percent support. Compare a similar graph for a large corporation, and you’ll see much more positive trend.
Enough people know what is wrong — at least the candidates sure do. Republican candidate Carly Fiorina of course knew that the video of a fetus’ “legs kicking, its heart beating,” did not originate in a planned parenthood office, just like she knows how much money she gets from outside sources and P.A.C.S.
But these aren’t the issues that are giving them points in the polls. For people like frontrunner Donald Trump, it is base racism.
What makes all these other traditional candidates like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio so upset is that they now learn that people don’t give two shits about taxing big companies less because Trump has already put forward a tax plan to tax hedge funds more. In reality, Trump’s moderate policies are antithetical to traditional Republican doctrine.
Those voters won’t care. All they care about is that Trump has the same view on immigrants that they do, which is that these people brought crime and drugs into the country and have killed U.S citizens, which, like both other current frontrunner Republicans often say, was a complete and utter lie. There are no statistics to validate anything that Trump has said. It was a simple lie, and it got him numbers.
It is people like Trump and Fiorina who have dispelled the smokescreen, which has been shrouding the actions of our current government. It reveals just how corrupt the current system is. If people would rather pick a man like Trump for president over the usual stock, it exemplifies that people would rather have a president they think is honest in what they believe, especially if it already confirms their prejudices.
It is populism, and in a way, a true democracy. What is so disturbing is what American populism looks like. It looks like a shark tank of racism and verbal abuse.
This is the time where we can change things. It was being stuck in a rut for the past several elections that caused this. If we as a nation disburse with this fractured and partisan mentality, then we can see change. The problems are obvious, the solutions only a little more complicated. But it’s not impossible, the only thing is, will it happen now? Otherwise, I’m not sure it ever will.
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