2016. An election year. A dozen or more candidates from both parties vie for attention and acknowledgement; the obviousness of their desire making the spectacle both painful and comical. The media is having a field day--as it should.
A political junkie should be enjoying this. Four and eight years ago, I was.
I am unsure where this disgruntlement of a voter began--but I will remove one assumption from the list: it has virtually nothing to do with President Obama. I do not for one moment regret my votes in 2008 or 2012. As Conservatives would gleefully claim, I never felt swindled or bought by Obama's Administration. I did not always agree with his decisions. But I did resent the times when he, like most politicians, was being influenced by corporate campaign donations. Even more resentful of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, my distrust is no longer silent; my cynicism no longer buried behind a faux front--the last attempt at claiming that things are suppose to be this way.
No Hillary. I am incredibly proud of Secretary Clinton's accomplishments; her Martha Stewartesque way of fighting through challenges--especially from men who don't like to lose. She would probably be an excellent President. Unfortunately, she is part of a very old, very broken system.You do not spend 40 years in the political spectrum, attempt to continue a dynasty, allow greedy corporations to float your rise to the top--and then step to the podium as the maestro of the systems rebuke.
I look to Bernie and I should be relieved. No corporate tax dollars funding his campaign, whose platform is a testimony to the enviable workings of places like Denmark and Sweden. Free tuition, making the wealthy pay their fair share--how does that not sound good? And then I think about Senator Sanders' lifetime of service in our Congress. I look at his failure to collaborate and question how he would begin the debate to bring about these necessary reforms and how he would effectively buck the system that has afforded him political stature. I look at the Senator and question not only whether he would--but whether he should be in office in the first place. Electing anyone seven years from their 80th birthday to one of the most stressful offices in the land is lunacy. Not only does the man sound tired--he looks it. And if that makes me an ageist, I am an ageist. At age 69 upon her would-be election, Hillary is in the same boat. We are not well-served when we elect aging leaders. If the risk of lacking fresh ideas isn't a problem, the lack of stamina is (i.e. Reagan and the still-ongoing debate of whether or not the onset of Alzheimer's began during his last term.) Figuring out my disenchantment the other night, it all made sense: Right Message, Wrong Deliverer.
As goes without saying, I have no faith in any of the Republican candidates. If there were a Jon Huntsman or a 'Rockefeller Republican'--educated Moderates who didn't go around catering to a bunch of nut jobs--I might lend them an ear. The GOP isn't smart enough to nominate those candidates.
I cannot get jazzed about anyone in this race and while I still intend to vote, I have zero idea as to who will get that vote.
Last year, I declared myself a political 'Unaffiliated', ending fifteen years of consistently Democratic registration. This was not an easy call: I was once a College Democrat and did some relatively-active campaigning for candidates even in the years that followed college. The Party had shown itself as the standard-bearer of many things-Progressive and I appreciated that, even when it took the Party years to evolve into those stances. But the more I watched the operation, the more it dawned on me that the Republican and Democratic parties are more similar than what they would like for us to see. As the saying goes, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." In our two-party system, the shoe fits.
America should not have to "choose between the lesser of two evils." In a land of an estimated 322 million people, it is both patronizing and suspect that our attentions are focused towards two candidates. The media fuels their rise. The apathy of the public does the same. But at the end of the day, it is the collaboration of the powers-that-be and the dominating parties that results in business as usual. The more we trust their candidates, the more we accept the status quo. The more we turn to the alleged security that the 150+ year old parties promote, the more we forfeit our voice and rely on the corporations in bed with them to do our bidding.
And we all know how corporations have our best interests at heart.
