The 2016 Presidential Election looms large in our future. November seems simultaneously soon and later. We’ve been inundated with election coverage for the past couple years, and yet the talking heads can’t figure out how we got to this place, where two of the most unpopular candidates are expected to be nominated by their generally unhappy parties. When potential votes are asked whether they will vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump they begin to justify voting for a candidate they don’t want to be president, chalking it up to a lack of choice.
Now the candidates were decided – up to this point – by voting in primary elections and caucases. The two who are the presumptive nominees are the high vote getters, yet the majority of people who talk to reporters do not want those two in office. The reporters and talking heads are all thoroughly confused as to how that’s possible.
Over the past 20 or 30 years the folks in political office have predicted varying worst case scenarios if you vote for their opponent. As the years have passed, the dire predictions have escalated exponentially. Throw in a few natural and man-made disasters and the majority of the populace are voting against a candidate – and the future he or she will bring – as opposed to voting for a candidate whom will do a great job in the position for which he or she is running.
There’s no doubt bad things will happen if you vote for a Democrat. Conversely there’s no doubt bad things will happen if you vote for a Republican. There’s no doubt bad things will happen if you vote for a Libertarian. Of course, there’s no doubt bad things will happen if you don’t vote. Since bad things will happen – life has proven that to all of us – maybe we should concentrate on how to make good things happen.
If you want positive changes in the world – don’t vote negatively. I posit you get whatever is foremost in your mind. If you fear loss, you will experience crippling loss. If you don’t want something in your life, and work to avoid it – do the exact opposite, the outcome will be the same.
For example, if your mother was absent and you longed for her presence in your life, you may experience a fear of abandonment. If you have a child and smother your child with your presence your child will develop a fear of abandonment since he or she never learns to deal with being without you.
If you want a better America, don’t vote against the person who you voted for the last time. How can than help anything? Look at your life. Do you typically make big changes in four years? Do you typically get fired if someone tells your co-workers you’re not doing a good job – whether or not the facts dispute that assertion? When judging the effectiveness of a political candidate, look to your life. Are you in the same place, or a better place than before you voted for the candidate. If its the same place, determine maintaining the status quo is what you were doing before you voted for that candidate. If you were on a downhill slide before, and the slide has stopped, you’ve made progress. If you were holding your own and on a slide, you’ve lost progress. If you were doing well and you are headed down, you’re negatively progressing. Now decide if this is due to the President or the Congress. You elect both. The President’s job is to act on what Congress – your voice in Washington – presents him. If he isn’t getting presented what you’d like, you need new Congressmen. Having trouble getting new Congressmen? Look to your state legislators, since they are the people who draw the voting districts that determine your representation. If your representative doesn’t represent you, you need to make changes in your State Legislature. You know lots of state legislators begin as local politicians – city councilmen, county commissioners, district attorneys, planning commissioners, and school board members. It would behoove you to get to know the folks in your community that make the decisions that directly affect your life. Know their policies and tendencies and make your decisions based on what you know – not what someone else tells you. If you choose wisely in local elections, you know for whom you vote for state elections and when that guy moves into national elections, you’ve seen all he has to offer and can make a learned decision.
In case you haven’t noticed candidates change, politics don’t. Have a look through history. Change the names and the technology and you will generally find stories that closely parallel any current event. Notice the outcome of those events – the choices that were made. You will find that people learn from recent history, but repeat the mistakes of the distant past. It has been said when people know better they do better. Learn more. Do better. Vote for something you believe will make the world a better place, rather than against something you fear.
How did we get here? Fear. How do we get better? Do the right thing for everybody else. If someone shows you whom she or he is – believe her or him. Don’t deny their truth. Don’t deny any truth, because it is whether you like it or not. It is. Let it be. You are, whether you like it or not. Do your best to love yourself, and love others, and spread that love through the world. Love puts the truth in its proper place and makes life matter.