That first paragraph may seem a bit over dramatic but that is how all of the media seem to be portraying it. The evil Trump vs the crooked Clinton and places such as The New York Times and Fox News are having a field day pitching these opposites of character against each other. Just like it seems that many of their reporters have no idea where they're going with a specific post or article, neither do I on this blog post. But as a UK Citizen it is difficult to understand the anger, frustration and therefore decision that the American people will make, however, this is what I think.
Trump has said so many horrific things that the electorate are used to it. He could literally say anything that he wanted and people would stand up for it. A Presidential candidate saying something bad is like them standing on a nail, it's going to cut straight through their campaign (the foot) and most definitely will hurt them. If you take this analogy then you can see that Trump is lying on a bed of nails. Each nail represents something that should hurt his campaign but as he has said so many of these this he is just able to sit on top of them and adding another nail will not make the slightest of difference.
You can see Hillary's 'nails' so clearly and how badly they have impacted her campaign. The 'bag of deplorables' comment and her emails. From an outsiders point of view it is difficult to see why these have enraged the American people so much but Trump has managed to latch onto these and paint her as a sour and out of touch woman.
Three paragraphs down and it's easy to see another advantage that he has in the race for the White House. I have already mentioned Trump's name twice as much as I have mentioned hers. Now this post won't just be a rant about the US political system with hints of sarcasm, reports have shown that even when Hillary makes a campaign speech or seemingly wins a debate Trump is able to get more airtime and far more social media mentions. If the electorate see you more even if it's just on TV they are more likely to vote for you.
Although the media will always influence it's important to see where America stands as a whole. The US system is so far to the right of our own government that Jeremy Corbyn makes Bernie Sanders look like George W Bush. I know that's a gross exaggeration due to the fact that Sanders can put a sentence together but it vital, none the less, to think about how the world views the US and this race. Although the UK is an extremely strange mix of a left-wing healthcare and pension system with a usually right-wing macroeconomic and immigration policy even our current Conservative government is slightly to the left of the US 'liberal' candidate in Clinton. This shows that the difference between Trump and Clinton may be much less than you think in terms of policy.
However, no one knows the policy that they truly stand for. There has been so little policy talk and so many insults flying between the candidates it is difficult to really get to what each of them think about the main issues. Polls suggest that the Democrats will regain the Senate and the House is harder to predict but will Trump just create his own policy and not listen to his party that are increasingly trying to distance himself from him? Trump in 2004 stated that he 'identifies as a Democrat'.This is amazing how he has moved back and forth not only on things he has said, policies he wants to use but actually what party he supports.
Clinton did change party support when she was at college but has been a faithful Democrat since. Though she always tries too hard to adapt her 'personal views' to modern times. An example of this is gay marriage where she has both said that 'marriage is a sacred bond between solely man and woman' and that 'every sexuality has the right to love' within a 5 year period. She has also both been for and against NAFTA over the previous 10 years.
From an outsiders point this is what I plainly don't understand about this election. How are you supposed to vote for someone that you have no idea what they truly believe in or stand for.
There was a ridiculous idea flying round twitter not to long ago with the '#RepealThe19th' being used by some people. For those who don't know this is to do with the 19th amendment which states that a US citizen would not be denied their right to vote on 'accounts of sex'. This then allowed women to vote for the first time. You can tell how brutal this campaign has got when some people were openly stating that they were against the right of everyone to have a equal vote. This is both confusing and harrowing how supposedly one of the most developed countries in the world has people that stand for ideas like this.
Having studied the US system it is incredible to see how sacred the constitution is. As the constitution is so important to everyday life you can see this is what is important about the election. The Supreme Court. No one will ever have enough time or blog space to explain how important the US Supreme Court is but please do look up the politicisation of this legislative body. Every important decision that has come out of that county is down to their legislative body and with the final justice being appointed by the next President with a current 4-4 split, it's crucial. Abortion, gay marriage and segregation laws have all changed in the past century not by the President, who is supposedly the leader of the free world, but by the Supreme Court.
During our previous election the Conservative party was harassed in the press after spending a huge £16.7 million on their various campaign techniques. Now Obama alone, not the Democrats but Obama just in his 2012 bid for the White House, spent over $1 billion. The two parties have spent over $2 billion this time. The idea that people are able to buy elections has been round for a while as the general trend is that whoever spends the most money becomes President.
It's difficult to see how the American people don't have a massive problem with all this going on and the influence wealthy individuals will have over the candidates due to large donations.
I apologise to anyone reading this for the rambling nature of my writing, the badly structured argument and occasional awful sentences. I just wanted to write about what I found strange about this election and not stop.
On the 9th November we will wake up to what will go down as one of the biggest decisions in American history, I'm sure of it There are positives and negatives to both sides. There will be anger after the next President is sworn in there is no doubt but I hope that over the next four years the US will get tired of this division. Instead of only standing up for your party, stand up for what you will believe in and try to make a difference.