As Election Day approaches, some of us may come to think before we cast our votes, “How did we manage to end up with these two?” And for the obvious answer, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump were the favorites for their representing parties. Throughout the entire election process, there has been a lot of arguing on behalf of both sides, on whether who is the more “evil” between the two candidates.

Hillary Clinton has been called out on many things such as her management of the Benghazi attack, the us of donations from the Clinton Foundation, and the most recent incident, her use of personal email servers for classified emails. The Benghazi attack Clinton was a part of resulted in the death of several American soldiers. During Clinton’s visit to Benghazi, she states that she was under fire and had to take cover upon arriving, but video evidence shows her greeting and taking pictures with others. Many have called this a cover-up for lying and for her failure to do her job. In regards to the Clinton Foundation, Clinton made statements, saying that she would distance herself from the Clinton Foundation as well as limit foreign donations. However, she has failed to live up to her statements again as it was found that Clinton was granting favors to major Clinton Foundation donors and received millions of donations from foreign governments. Finally, the latest e-mail scandal that emerged as a result of Hillary’s carelessness, leaked through wikileaks which revealed her use of a personal email-server rather than a government-authorized server.

Donald J Trump has been called out on his lack of morals, hypocrisies, and recent voice clips of him being sexually assertive over women. Donald Trump’s campaign revolves around the slogan “Make America Great Again”, while kicking out all Mexicans as they are labeled as rapist and drug dealers, and keeping out all Muslims from America, as they are labeled as terrorist. What he attempts to gain by saying this is to have Americans who feel that their opportunities were stolen by “non-Americans” vote for him and to not allow cultural diffusion. Many jobs are also outsourced to outside places because of the cheap production cost which Donald Trump does as well, so by definition, he is a leading cause as to why immigrants are stealing “American jobs”. The recent voice clips leaked about Donald Trump contain him speaking about how he is able to sexually harass women because he is rich and famous and wouldn’t face repercussions.

Tl;dr, vote for who you believe is the best for the country, not because of who is of lesser evil or who you hate more.

Gerrymandering is the process of manipulating the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class. When the party controls the state legislature they can redraw their political boundaries to further increase the maximum number of congressional districts they can win. This process isn’t very fair as it changes results of an election in which the states can consistently vote for the same party. This can allow a party to win more electoral seats in spite of having a numerical disadvantage in the population. So for example, a population of 100 people with 40 percent red and 60 percent blue. The red is at a disadvantage ,but with the right boundary drawing they can win majority of the seats in the two districts.

Some argue that the US is the only major democratic power that allows politicians to have an active role in creating voting districts, and it contributes to the divisive nature of American politics. But, as both major parties benefit from gerrymandering, the political will to reform the system doesn’t exist. Both Barack Obama and Tom DeLay have benefited from gerrymandering in their political careers. In spite of a lot of pressure to reform the system to ensure fairer and more competitive elections, as it stands, the problem is set to continue.

i believe that this boundary drawing  technique is kind of silly. Even though it benefits both parties so that it kind of fair, it isn’t completely majority ruling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v97xH6Bof0

Throughout the 2016 presidential election, there has been a lot of back and forth regarding both sides, Clinton and Trump. To be completely honest, I get most of my information regarding the election, first off, from Facebook. Now, I know this sounds dumb, and so “millennial”. However, it is amazing how much coverage the election has gotten through social media, that the teen friends I have alternate between sharing funny memes and expressing their political positions in this election. It is through all these posts that I keep up to date on what has been going on. The one thing that stands out the most, is the conversation regarding the scandals both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are involved in.

These scandals are defining characteristics in this election, especially since it is how people tend to defend their candidate and oppose the other. There has been an abundance of articles, comedy skits, and class discussion on the plethora of Trump scandals. However, there will always be one mention of Hillary Clinton’s emails. I find it so appalling that one could overlook Trump’s scandals, pushing forth the idea that Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is way too bad on her part, so bad that she is unfit for President.

It is especially ridiculous because Trump’s scandals cover a wide array of topics, all of which are very concerning. These same scandals and his revolting comments make hime extremely unfit for presidency. However, it is still put aside to put Hillary down. T

This video with Seth Meyers (starting from 6:17) really shows exactly what I believe is happening on both sides of the election. He exaggerates that it is too hard to choose between Clinton and Trump. He gives and insight into the cons of both candidates, Hillary’s being under federal investigation, and Trump’s overabundance of cons.

This being said, I personally think that Hillary’s email scandal is definately worth talking about. However, in comparison to Donald Trump, it is unfair to her and to the rest of the Unites States, to pretend that everything that Donald Trump says and does is okay.