The 2016 election is a joke... and Millennials don't care

by NATHAN DANKO
Contributing writer

​​It's November 2016, and we Americans know what that means. It is time for our brightest minds to rise and properly debate as to whom should be commander in chief of our grand nation.

If only this were the case.

In 2016, we get to choose between two individuals with a lot of baggage, ranging from hatred towards memes and the deletion of emails to sexual assault accusations and blatant bigotry.

For future historians, the 2016 election will be a joke. In most elections, there is a clear vision of who is the better candidate by October. In October of the 2016 election, we debate as to who is least likely to ruin everything our forefathers strived and fought for. "Would you rather total your car or have it stolen?" has frequently been asked as a joke regarding the election.

Don't get me wrong, this brings up an interesting debate, which at times can be more productive than our actual debates; With insult-filled discussions and constant interruption, many believe they are watching two children bicker over the TV remote. The TV remote just happens to be the key to the Oval Office. 

For the election, we are faced with two choices that most believe are equally bad. We have Donald Trump running as the Republican nominee. With a small loan of a million dollars under his belt and blatant bigoted comments he is the key to making America great again in the eyes of some voters. In the blue corner, we have Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formerly known as First Lady Clinton. With 33,000 e-mails deleted and allegedly getting four Americans in Benghazi killed, she has convinced others that she will put families first.

Regardless of who is running, there is a shared idea between an entire generation. Most would expect millennials, most of them voting in a presidential election for the first time, to take sides. The issue is many millennials do not want to vote in the 2016 election; most millennials hate both candidates for a plethora of reasons, ranging from being offended by racism to being fearful of an alleged criminal. The issue is that many millennials do not want to be associated with supporting either candidate. Ironically, many of them believe that moving to Canada would lead to a better life than living under Trump or Clinton. This idea can be witnessed on any social media website in the form of memes: 4chan’s Pepe the Frog remodeled to appear as Donald Trump or there have been remodels of Orange is the New Black posters featuring Hillary Clinton.

With the socialist Bernie Sanders knocked out of the election, most millennials simply do not care who wins any more. This idea has spread through social media and has reached the entire generation. When voting, young “Bernie or bust” voters intend to write in Sanders with a minuscule shred of hope that he will get elected. Many hypothesize that if he had the Democratic nomination, he would have the fair majority of the millennial vote.

Many Americans in general believe that this election will bring upon a doomsday, if not total anarchy. Although a bit extreme, it is a common fear regarding the 2016 election. Many fear racist comments by our commander in chief will provoke World War III. On the other hand, voters fear having an alleged criminal in office will lead to favoring the one percent and ruining our economy. With a poorly planned tax plan that is estimated to have a job decrease by over two percent, many fear the economy will decline to levels seen in the Great Depression. As Americans, our only solace is a simple process put in place by our forefathers: checks and balances.

Yes, the kind your high school civics teacher preached about. This simple process prevents one-third of our government pie from having too much power. With checks and balances in place, all ideas proposed by our commander in chief go under review. For example, if one politician wanted to deport people of Latin heritage, their proposal would be voted on for approval. As Woodrow Wilson would contest, a split party system results in good ideas being denied out of spite. Only really poor ideas unite both sides in voting against it. In the case of a mass deportation based on bigoted beliefs, we see the second option. The same can be said for ridiculous tax plans that would cause blue collar jobs to have wage decreases by 2.1 percent.  This simple process is the key to preserving the American way of life – the kind that doesn’t look like a Mel Gibson movie.

With checks and balances preventing bigoted and poorly planned ideas and a missing millennial vote, one can only hope that our commander in chief will strive to improve his or her ideas. One can only hope, right? No matter which candidate wins in the awful 2016 election, we Americans have that one shred of hope. With the election fast approaching, it will be interesting to see which candidate America thinks will be the lesser of two evils.