I may still only be in my 20s, but I've been around the block a bit. I've witnessed many presidential elections so far, and have a pretty decent memory of 2004 on (when I started paying attention to politics). Even then, I have a decent memory of 2000 too (especially the whole controversy), and vague memories of 1996 and 1992. Today, I want to focus on the whole Trump thing.
The democrats are trying to portray a Trump election in apocalyptic terms. The sky will fall, he will start world war 3, destroy our country, cause millions to die, blah blah blah. The supreme court will forever lean conservative, he will destroy this country's foreign policy, he will implode our economy, blah blah blah.
I have no doubt Trump would be a bad president. Then again, I can't think of a single republican who would be a good president. The whole party jumped off a cliff. But let's not act like Trump is uniquely bad, and that he needs to be stopped.
It's true, he doesn't know what he's doing. He has no experience, he's extremely ignorant on the issues. However, after watching the republican convention, I have a suspicion that if he gets elected he's not going to be the one running the country. Between rumors of his delegating his responsibilities out to Mike Pence, allowing the Heritage foundation to pick court justices for him etc., I suspect he will allow the RNC to make important decisions, while he just oversees the process and makes nice speeches. And while any GOP president is bad, I don't see Trump as UNIQUELY bad. Heck, in the primary, I saw him as less dangerous than Ted Cruz, because Cruz is much more of an ideological hardliner who also knows how to get things done. I actually see Trump's ignorance and naivete as working in his favor because it tells me he won't be as extreme as other candidates. I think he will work with whomever he has to work with, be they republican or democrat. I see him as mostly being a puppet of the RNC, although he may also work with the democrats if they retake congress (see: Clinton, Obama).
I also want to remind people that I was a republican in 2008. And I fell for a lot of propaganda for Obama. I believed he was a socialist, that he wanted to redistribute the wealth, that he had strange anti capitalistic ideas. And don't forget his lack of experience. The guy didn't even finish out one term in the senate and was already running for president. He was portrayed as naive and green and a disaster for this country, between his inexperience and "extreme" ideology. I was smart enough not to fall for birtherism, but other than that I bought into a lot of the republican propaganda. After the 2010 mid terms, I recognized he wasn't anywhere as bad as I thought and was actually quite moderate and competent. And then I became a democrat in 2012 or so and moved left since then.
Trump is, admittedly, objectively worse than Obama. He has NO political experience, no grasp of any policies (Obama at least had some and was very educated on the issues). And he says a lot of dangerous and crazy things. However, the democrats act like he would be the apocalypse. They're more or less trying to turn him into the new Barry Goldwater, and even ripped off old Goldwater ads. And let's not forget the similarities between all the talk about nuclear codes and the Daisy ad.
All in all, I have no doubts a Trump presidency would be awful. However, I don't think it will be AS bad as the democrats act like (they would portray any republican at this point as just as bad if they were the nominee), and let's not forget Clinton wouldn't be great. She would be better, but not great. And honestly, I think giving a vote to Clinton out of fear just validates the DNC's mistreatment of Sanders and progressives and their persistent dissing of the left, so all a vote for Clinton would do is just extend the crappy status quo. Things aren't going to change until we push the system electorally, and until we are willing to pressure the parties to change things. They'll keep treating us like schmucks as long as we continue acting like them.
That being said, when you hear all of this shrill screaming about how "there's so much at stake" and that you have to "vote blue no matter who" and that you have a civic duty to support Clinton even if you don't like her, don't buy it. This is just DNC propaganda that's trying to intimidate and scare you into voting for them because they have nothing else to run on.
I'm not going to tell you who to vote for. Vote your conscience, as Cruz would say. If you think that Trump would be good, then support him. If you think Clinton would be good, or are so scared of Trump you have to support her, do so. But don't diss people for voting third party and tell us we're wasting our vote or that there's so much at stake and we can't afford to mess around. The way I see it, we need to mess around. We need to stand up to the establishment, and nothing will ever change. So if your conscience is like mine and tells you to vote third party, Johnson, Stein, whomever, do so. It's the only way things will change. Don't be scared or intimidated. Just vote for whom you want.
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