Russia

What? People outside of the U.S. have a say in our democracy? Yes. Yes they do. Not legally, they don't, but when it comes to allowing besties Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to share dinner in the White House, there are no laws. It's a well known fact by now that there was involvement of Russian Hackers in the Presidential Election, but the issues resulting from this go well beyond just a minor private infringement. Maybe Donald Trump wasn't supposed to be president. Maybe it was supposed to be Hillary. Maybe. Not likely, but maybe. But this issue goes well beyond just the fact that the results of the election may have been "rigged". This is a matter of the security of our democracy. The message that was sent by the Russians when they hacked the results was that voting doesn't matter. My changing the results of one of the most important polls in history and the determining factor of the success of the human race, the Russians disrupted our democracy. Our government is based on the idea that the people of the country are able to decide their own future. When there is a foreign source interfering with that structure, it becomes useless because now, it is not the people of the country that are deciding how they want their future to go but it is rather the upper class of another country. This is only one problem though. By helping Donald Trump win the election (regardless of whether he helped a lot or not), Vladimir Putin did something of which Trump has to repay him for. So now, in the future, when Russia wants to hurt the U.S. and take advantage of us, all he has to do is bring up the time when he helped our president win the election. Putin has Trump "under his belt". Now, is Obama wrong for expelling Russian diplomats that may have taken part in the hacks? No, he is merely defending the democracy. Is Putin wrong for not "retaliating"? No, he needs to deal with the consequences. The issue is when you look deeper: Putin is trying to keep his interactions with the U.S. after the election until Trump is president to a minimum, because everything will be easier then. Still, the worst part is that Trump is falling for it, calling him "very smart" and accepting his motions.

The U.S. democracy is not something to mess with and once again, despite the huge mess that we have gotten ourselves into, I'm sure that we will be able to recover form it. 

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