It's been a couple of months and it's practically a new country

I never though I would say this... Trump is our president. He is. Donald Trump. President Donald. I'm speechless. This win-what does it mean for our future? What does it mean for the entire democratic style of our government as a whole? It is doubtful that the values this country prides itself on as are really going to exist anymore. Just look at it: Donald Trump in office. Making a record as quite possibly the most divisive presidential candidate in the history of elections. Now, I've heard reactions from "In your face, we're gonna make America great again!" to "Let's move to Canada". Both, however, are inappropriate for the situation. While the first one only demonstrates the stand-offish and egotistical personality of the Trump Supporters, the second one only gives in to the fearful environment that the Trump Supporters are trying to create. There is no doubt that this election has brought out the worst in people, but it is not longer just the election. The mentality of "I'm superior to all different than me" encouraged by Donald Trump is not going to stop; it's only going to get worse until the end of his four year term. Already, the portion of the country that supports the president-elect has began to repress the opinions of all others, marking them off as "stupid", "unreasonable", "too opinion-based", or "influenced by biased media". Despite the fact that there is no way to get "non opinionated" facts other than to sift through the words of a variety of media sources, 46% of the country believes this. Still, moving out of the country due to fear only encourages Trump's message. The only real way to repair the state of the country is to stay and fight for our diminishing values and to not stop.  Even though this election has told us otherwise, each and every one of our votes matter. In addition, especially after election night, we need to have more faith in each other. It's not that a majority of the country believes in Trump's xenophobic ideas, but it is rather that those who do are spread across the states (which is rendering the electoral college system useless). This election was only a hurdle in the long history in the United States, but it can easily be crossed if the country can unite over dealing with our new president rather than splitting on whether he is right or wrong.

Donald Trump vs. Bernie Clinton

It's been almost two months since my last blog post. Posts will definitely become more frequent now that finals are over and I'm on summer break. That aside, there has definitely been a great amount of political news over the past few weeks. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the presumptive nominees for their parties and the competition is mostly between them. What gets me, though, is that Bernie Sanders is still in the race, which is unreasonable at this time considering that it is now 100% impossible for Sanders to win the nomination. He needs 919 more delegates, if Clinton gains absolutely no delegates from now forward. In total, there are 84 delegates left. Of course there are also super delegates but even those will not propel Sanders far enough forward as to clinch the democratic nomination. So it's definitely time for Sanders to drop out of the election, while he is consistently insisting that he "is in until the end." However, Sanders' reasoning is quickly becoming clear. He recently agreed to a "truce" with Hillary Clinton. Sanders isn't in it for the presidency now, he is in it for the defeat of Donald Trump. Trump reached the needed delegate total before Clinton, and he was able to focus all of his energy to fighting just her for quite a long period of time. However, Clinton still had Sanders to worry about. But more recently, Sanders has made his speeches about how horrible Trump is more than anything else. This means that Trump now not only has to battle Clinton on the political battlefield, but also defend against the consistent feed of attacks from the entire democratic party (specifically both of the democratic candidates). Another theory that has been brought up was that Sanders is attempting to stay in the race in the case that Clinton has any negative findings (from the FBI... or anything else). This is also very possible. I'm hoping that Sanders will be dropping out of the election soon, because he is simply wasting money by staying in it. However, it is also important for him to stay in, as being a presidential candidate is the easiest and most effective way to get widespread media coverage (which is definitely not a concern for Trump).


*Note: All delegate counts were at the time of writing.


Sources:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html

https://news.vice.com/article/bernie-sanders-and-hillary-clinton-talk-truce-after-she-wins-final-primary

Presidents and Such

With all the debate happening nowadays, it seems like such a hard thing to know what is going on with the presidential election. Well, we all should know-we are after all the people that are going to be affected by all this mess. It's just so hard to keep up. Well, let me just throw my ideas out there.

First of all, I am fairly sure that Hillary Clinton is going to be our next president. Donald Trump, as unfiltered, outspoken, and lacking of political knowledge as he is, will somehow manage to win the Republican primaries, as he already has a sizable lead over Ted Cruz. Hillary Clinton will beat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries as she has a very large lead over Bernie at the moment. Bernie would have to win almost all of the states by a fairly good margin for him to be able to beat Hillary Clinton at this point. So, in the general election, it will be Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I am sure that Hillary will win, as many of the people I have met have enough reason to dislike Trump. Remember, Both of the Democratic candidates will gain 95%+ of the Democratic vote, but Trump, as of right now, only has about 60% of the Republican vote. Many Republicans are only voting for Ted Cruz because they really, strongly do not want Donald Trump in office. This decision basis will lead to many of those 40% of Republicans going over to the Democratic side. Let’s say about 10%, just to be generous. Now Hillary Clinton already has half of ten, which is five, in addition to her 47.5% Democratic votes. She now has 52.5% of the vote, which is over 50%, and leads to Donald Trump having less than the majority at 47.5% now. On a similar basis, even if Bernie Sanders wins, the same thing is going to happen. Now, if Ted Cruz wins, it will be a tighter race, but Hillary or Bernie can still win because a lot of Trump supporters are strongly against Cruz and Kasich, and the Democrats will get those voters. So, the Democrats win either way. Sorry, Republicans.

So, what’s your opinion? Who do YOU think will win, and why? Leave an answer down below in the comments.

Now: Here are some fun facts.

-Are you a Democrat or a Republican? Well, there’s a good chance it’s neither because a Gallup poll shows that 42% of voters consider themselves independent.

-75% of Americans think that Donald trump receives too much media coverage.

-He has gotten $2 Billion of free media coverage just by being himself.

-The voter turnout in 2012 was only 53.6%


*UPDATE: Bernie Sanders is now only about 400 delegates behind from Hillary Clinton, so his victory is quite possible. 

Sources:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/06/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/11/independents-outnumber-democrats-and-republicans-but-theyre-not-very-independent/

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/31/media/trump-media-pew-survey/

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-number-of-undecided-voters-in-the-us-wont-stop-shrinking-2015-6