BIZZARE POLITICAL DISCOURSE DOMINATES 2016 ELECTION

Uncommon Nominees Lead Parties
By Mildred Robertson

 

The 2016 Presidential election will be noted as perhaps the most bizarre in the annals of American history. This distinction will not be achieved because, for the first time, a woman will head the ticket of a major party as the presidential nominee, although that is a noteworthy detail. What has made this election unique is the nature of the race itself.

The country faces numerous challenges that are vital to our continued stature as the premier super-power on the world stage. We are facing economic challenges as we wrestle to balance domestic and international trade to fully participate in the global economy while creating a robust business climate within our borders. We must continue to work to create international partnerships that will support fair trade practices and create good-paying American jobs.

The browning of America has pushed racial tension to new heights, and racial profiling and militaristic police tactics have pitted the Black and brown communities against municipal governments across the nation. While still the most affluent nation in the world, according to Pearson's Global Education Index,  America ranks 14^th in the world for “cognitive skills and educational attainment.”  A Bloomberg poll ranks health care efficiency in the US at 44 out of 51 countries surveyed. The International Centre for Prison Studies states that America has more prisoners than any other country in the world. All of these issues and more loom large on our horizon. These are the issues that the next President of the United States will face as he or she strives to move us forward toward peace, growth and prosperity.

So, it is bizarre that the nominees for the 2016 presidential election and the media are talking about a beauty queen’s weight, women’s menstrual cycles, the relevance of the size of a man’s hands to other body parts, how one might be weak following a bout with pneumonia, or how it is not nice to poke fun at those with disabilities. 

Granted, these topics were all introduced by Republican nominee Donald Trump as part of the presidential discourse. But both the media and the opposing party have allowed Trump to set the tone for this presidential race.

First, the media seemed to think that ratings were more important than the final patriotism as they gave Trump millions of dollars in free advertising as he said one outrageous thing after the other, guaranteeing him prime-time news coverage on a regular basis. He was allowed to introduce myriad falsehoods into public discourse that an uneducated and unsophisticated portion of the electorate embraced as gospel fact. Those in the Republican Party who didn’t believe his many falsehoods eventually embraced the fact that a lot of the Republican base were willing to give Trump a pass as long as he was able to defeat Hillary Clinton, and just got on board.

 

Meanwhile, Clinton wrestles with a millennial vote unfamiliar with her true record. Many of them have come to accept an obfuscated representation of who she is and what she has stood for over the years. Clinton has failed to break through years of negative media directed at her and the Clinton machine, and she holds an unenthusiastic lead among Blacks and Latinos. 

So, with only a lukewarm Obama coalition behind her, she has taken to poking the bear rather than staying on message.   This tactic has impeded her efforts to clearly enunciate the challenges that face our country and express how her policies will address them.

She has learned that she can’t focus on what appears to me to be a pretty solid platform, and make headway with the electorate. But when she pushes Trump’s buttons she can make him veer off the script that has been carefully crafted to make him seem more acceptable to the reluctant party liners who have pledged “never Trump.” All it takes is a poke at his wealth, or his misogyny to send Trump off into a Twitter storm that will ultimately result in bad press and a drop in the polls.

I get it. Poll numbers and bad media mean something in an election. But it is an election, folks, for the highest office in the United States; the most powerful country in the world. This election is far too important than to hinge on emotions. It is too important to be decided by media coverage, or the antics of a carnival barker.

We have real problems that need real solutions. The fact that someone as incompetent, dishonest, racist, misogynistic and unstable as Donald Trump is one step away from the presidency is more than bizarre. It is dangerous.

There is just a little more than a month before most Americans go to the polls to elect the 45^th President of the United States. Let’s pray that the majority of Americans can dig through all the drama, falsehoods, and knee-jerk emotions that have dominated this election. Let's hope that the majority of us can make a sound judgment based on facts about what is best for our nation. Otherwise, on November 9^th we may wake up to a country in chaos—a country we don’t even know. A bizarre America where facts don’t matter, leadership is self-serving, aimless and corrupt, and the average American is left, like many enterprises with whom Trump did business, holding the bag.