What the world could lose in America's Presidential Election- Jake Urdangen

 

After looking around realclearpolitics.com, hoping to find some sort of article that I could understand pretty well, I came across an interesting one regarding the effects after this election. This article called What the world could lose in America’s presidential election, starts out by talking about the predicted outcome of if either Clinton or Trump won the presidency. Then it goes on to bring up things that have happened in other countries over the past decade. The author talks about how the internet has become a weapon of control. Donald Trump is not a father figure for our country that we would want in the white house. He has endorsed torture and other illegal acts of war, disparaged freedom of the press, undermined a free judiciary, campaigned by invective rather than debate, and hasn’t even let the public know about his tax returns! Even if he loses, which most hope he does, we still tend to wonder how he has made it this far in the campaign. It almost makes me feel bad that such a large percent of our country believes and is willing to fight for his political views. From Chapter 1 of the American Democracy, by Thomas Patterson, it talks about how important it is for us citizens to think politically. Instead of following social medias bias towards every political issue, we must come together. Political thinking is a key to responsible citizenship, but many citizens avoid it by virtue of paying scant attention to politics. The tools of political science can contribute to effective political thinking. The United States is a nation that was formed on a set of ideals. These ideals are today the basis of american culture. Although imperfect in practice,these ideals have guided what America has tried to achieve politically.

Some would say that the main idea of this article is really that democracy is a crucial part of having a success in office. Hiatt states, “But democracy promotion faded as a goal once Obama moved into the White House. He hoped that setting a good example at home — ending torture, closing (as he hoped to do) Guantanamo — would resonate overseas, but the results were disappointing” (Hiatt). That is basically saying that having citizens and allies having your back is what a successful president needs. Obama, as great as he did these past 8 years, unfortunately was set off on the wrong foot with democracy, coming in after George Bush. We should care about this because I along with my peers are the future of this generation. If we could learn at this young age how important stuff like majoritarianism and pluralism is, than we could bounce right back. It is important to address alliances, and reduce terrorism, but democracy needs to dwindle towards gold, instead of dwindling away, for our country to become improved.

Before I end here, I want to impose a question for you all: Is gaining majoritarianism and coming together as one unit, more important than sustaining peace and monetary needs in the United States?