Oh leap year, I remember when you were so cool. We got that extra day, I celebrated my friend Bryce’s rare birthday (he’s 5 now) and we spent a whole year making frog jokes (well we did when I was in the third grade). But now that I’ve turned 20 years, Leap Years are only synonymous with one thing: the presidential election. And oh my God I am tired of it.
I wouldn’t mind presidential elections—or politics for that matter—if everyone had a legitimate and smart comment to make. However, that is never the case. My Facebook feed is littered with opinions, “facts” and photoshopped pictures with meaningful quotes that would make any level-headed Canadian cry. I have seen heated debates where the legality of gay marriage comes into question but the two “lawyers” can’t even spell amendment right. These are the future leaders of our free world! When Scott Walker won his recall election against Tom Barrett, a Facebook friend of mine said, “that’s cool Wisconsin, I didn’t want gay marriage either.” Of course he was being sarcastic, but what’s maddening is that the issue of gay marriage had about a .00001 percent effect on the race. The election was mostly about unions and the economy and yet we had people vote who thought it was about social issues. Can there be an IQ test before you have to vote?
I’ll be the first to admit it: I don’t know what to believe anymore, I don’t know who is best for this country, and I certainly don’t know who (if I do) I plan on voting for. Who’s better? Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Gary Johnson, Ralph Nader, Godzilla, Pinky or the Brain!?! Really it’s a crapshoot. However, I’m pretty sure my opinion will not be swayed by whether or not you share that one picture of Mitt Romney looking more tan than Snooki (easy-pickings) on a Latino talk show.
Politics are a necessary evil. We need to vote for people that can represent us all. Without democracy, we’d just have a bunch of uneducated people yelling at each other to get what they want (sounds like the Internet). But isn’t that what we have already? I mean, we vote for our representatives to have educated responses to issues that matter to us, but the process that we need to endure is just that dystopia I described earlier. Aren’t candidates changing what they believe in the second they realize a different opinion can get them elected?
The question I guess we should ask is why the hell would anyone want to be president anyway? The stress of having the final say on every important issue to ever affect the American people is on your shoulders: Could you handle that? Have you seen Barack Obama’s hair recently? He needs “Just for Men” ASAP. And why does Mitt Romney want to be president? Wouldn’t making only $400,000 a year be a severe pay cut?
I guess I’m getting off track from my original point (hey just like every debate answer ever!), this isn’t about people running for president, it’s about those that blindly follow these people. I get it, we vote from our guts rather than our minds. Why should I care about the foreign policies of the two candidates when I know Mitt Romney is taller and taller people are more trustworthy? And yes, I did just spend 15 minutes on Google searching for the heights of every American president and laughing hysterically at James Madison. If I could, ask a debate question it’d be “would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?” because I can only trust a candidate that has the clarity of mind to pick the 100 tiny horses.
God, look at me over sharing now, I guess I flip-flopped from my original idea. So you know what, please share everything you think about this election. Obviously you’re more educated about it than me.
Over all this poli-talk too? Tell Michael about it at mvoloshin@wisc.edu.
