By Bianca Corgan and Katherine Cohen
Editor-in-Chief and Copy Editor
It’s campaign time, meaning it’s time to determine the future head of our Executive branch as well as the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate for four years. These positions require people of knowledge, respect, and diplomacy, but unfortunately, the process that lies at the heart of democracy is now the focus of a nationwide joke.
Every four years, candidates boast their skills and spend upwards of $2.5 billion while campaigning for the presidency. At the moment, the most popular candidates in the media are a consistently politically-incorrect Donald Trump, a once-popular Hillary Clinton, a much-too-socialist Bernie Sanders, and an individual by the name of “Deez Nuts.”
It seems that the race for the presidency– an honor once sought by myriad respected and refined individuals — is now the subject of ridicule. From candidate to candidate, we see mockery and an attempt to gain the upper hand in public media.
Let’s begin with Donald Trump. He boasts that his platform will make America “great” again. His ingenious plan consists of building a wall between the United States and Mexico, forcing nearly 11 million immigrants to self-deport, miraculously build new infrastructure while decreasing taxes, and ignoring what he considers to be the myth of global warming.
Yes, let’s build a wall. That has worked in the past, hasn’t it? The Berlin Wall was incredibly successful at separating East and West Berlin, while its death toll remains undeterminable to this day. And let’s work on existing racial tensions and divisiveness by being more blatantly exclusive. While we agree immigration is a primary concern, Trump is simply misguided in his perception of how to confront the situation at hand.
Yet miraculously, Trump is dominating in certain polls and posing a surprising threat to the GOP.
Next we have Hillary Clinton who seemed to be running the for the Democratic party unopposed, until her massive slipup regarding her emails. In addition to shedding light on the need for transparency in the White House, the email cover-up has led to her numbers plummeting in the polls — from 42 percent favorable to 48 percent unfavorable, according to fivethirtyeight.com.
Though there are some legitimate candidates, they are not receiving the attention in the media that they deserve. Instead, the louder the media hog, and the more sensational the scandal, clog up the airwaves away from those who want to address real issues and promote real change. Social media outlets that should convey pertinent information about more likely candidates such as Bernie Sanders, Dr. Ben Carson and Jeb Bush, we have been hearing instead about Donald Trump and Deez Nuts.
Deez Nuts, or rather a 15 year old Brady C. Olson, has actually polled well enough to receive media attention, despite not being old enough to legally run for office. Unfortunately for Deez Nuts and the future of America as we know it, he has been outpolled by a new satirical candidate, Captain Crunch who received 17% of the votes in a poll in North Carolina according to time.com.
Our criticism transcends party politics. Stemming from completely different political views, we both equally fear for the future of American presidential campaigns. Regardless of the candidate that is elected, should it be a Republican, Democrat, or neither, we hope that he or she will be a respected individual who has a sincere interest in the wellbeing of this nation. And we hope those who have the right to vote take their task seriously.
