I saw an image browsing social media the other day and it really got me thinking, especially after the shit show that is the 2016 election.
Now you may smile and laugh like the meme is intended to make you do, but it did much more than that for me. It really pissed me off and confused me as to why we’re in the position that we’re in. The current state of the election is pitting a Crooked Liar vs A Bigoted Idiot. I don’t want to sound like a person that asks dumb cliched questions, but how did we get here? Is this the best that we could do? It took all of 3 seconds of looking at that meme for me to realize no, it’s not the best we can do.
As a logical person, the lack of Bernie Sanders as a candidate for this election makes no sense to me. I’m not saying this from a progressive liberal point of view, I’m saying this as a person with a tested IQ higher than the average bear.
Now, you need to take this with a grain of salt, but I’m a registered Libertarian. I know, I know, how could I think like that? Well, at the time, my Libertarian ideals fell into a bucket where the primary focus on my life was good ole ME. If you think that’s selfish, you’re quite correct. As I grew up, physically and mentally, my opinion on the world drastically changed. I realized first and foremost that the world does not revolve around me, and that the world is a big place with a lot of people, none that matter less than me.
But, before we get into that, let’s talk about what attracted me to Bernie in the first place: Back in 2013 I saw this crazy old White Guy put a video on social media talking about how we need to reinvest in infrastructure. A One Trillion Dollar bill to fix our bridges, tunnels, and roadways. AND (the coolest part) a major focus on getting our train system caught up with the rest of the developed world. The Libertarian in me thought that was amazing, solely because that made MY travel better. But, that was the first time I realized, “Hey, this bill doesn’t just directly affect me…millions of people would benefit from this”. Something as simple as fixing our roads and what it would do for everyone in this country was my first step toward understanding that I’m just a sesame seed on the Big-Mac.
That moment sparked intrigue in me for world of politics and for the first time in a long time, I thought jokingly, I would vote for this man if he ran for President of the United States. Fast forward 2 years, and there he is, competing with the Big Clinton Machine on one of the grandest stages of them all.
I’d be pretending if I said at this point I didn’t know where he stood politically with every major topic of discussion, but that’s the part that started to bother me. This man, who has been on the right side of history time and time again, and stands for the popular view (currently) for pretty much every major issue was trailing this woman who has changed her position more times than any one person could count. The best part about his viewpoint on the issues is that he hasn’t changed over the years. That just tells me that society had to catch up mentally to what this man was thinking LONG before it was popular. That tells me that he wasn’t a “progressive liberal” in his views, it tells me that he was an Intellectual in his views. He was smarter than all of us and understood human mentality better than all of us but apparently not enough to get people to the polls.
Bernie Sander, man of the people, could not get the people that he represents to vote for him. I don’t care if you were a Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian, this man represented you in every way. Most people were just too ignorant to see it.
Fast forward to the Present: Now we’re months out from each parties convention, and we’re in the middle of the shit-show that is the Presidential Debate season. We’re seeing the people WE picked on stage looking like one moron yelling at another moron and we ask, “Is this the best we can do?” The simple answer is NO and we had an option that was a once in a lifetime option and we ignored it.
I have a feeling that one day we will look back at this election and think what could have been if we would have chosen differently. End Rant.