With election talks gearing up, an unnerving trend has quickly appeared – a trend that has been around for elections as long as I can remember and seems to be not only continuing, but growing in both intensity and acceptance. This degenerative trend is that of capitalism being used as a tool to forge campaigns filled with slander, libel and other assorted muck. Now, by no means am I naive to the ways of the world, and I don’t expect perfect people, with perfect records, waging perfect campaigns. But I do expect some facts other than past drug usage and family ties. Granted, we are a generation rife with ADD and jaded by years of televised indoctrination of the most useless kind, but I’m getting a sense of utter lack of respect for the intelligence of our generation.
The only campaign news I’ve heard lately is that of Barack Obama being loved by Hollywood to the tune of a cool million dollars in campaign donations, and that of Hillary Clinton sucking the life out of everyone she comes in contact with. Let’s not forget the obligatory pre-announcement of John McCain’s announcement of his pre-announcement to announce his candidacy on the noted and well-respected venue of “The Late Night with David Letterman.”
This bothers me because I sense a universal tinge of condescension toward the American public. Why is it that instead of presenting us with facts in an organized fashion, they feel it is more productive to throw insults back and forth, all the while promoting themselves much in the fashion of a movie? This last element leads me to my next point, the idea that in the land of the blind, the man with the most money can beat the one-eyed man to become king.
It seems that it is no longer about finding who is most qualified for the job, instead focusing mainly on who has the most glamorous campaign slogans and commercials. How are these campaigns funded? With donations, and the candidates’ own money. So why is it necessary for these candidates to spend such outrageous amounts of money on promoting themselves to the public? Do their platforms and political records not already merit media attention?
A few answers quickly grow apparent to shed some light upon these subjects, such as, they hate money, so they take other people’s and spend it on anything and everything they can think of. If you prefer, maybe that money is going to cover up some less-than-presidential action taken in the past or present. Whatever the case, I find it a little disturbing that the campaign process has become less about informing the public, and more about marketing a person as someone different than who he or she really is.
These points only reinforce what is great about the democratic system: that we can recognize these inherent flaws and see past the fog being cast before us. We have a choice that must be exercised in order to prevent people who shoot other people in the face from being elected into important offices. We have the choice to alter government how we see fit, with the hope of creating a country better than it has ever been before.
With these idealistic thoughts of grandeur fresh in mind, I will end with a single striking phrase I recently came across: Hulk Hogan for President.