It’s almost been a week since Election Day and, during these past few days I have heard nothing but pessimistic thoughts and predictions about America’s future.

In Political Science, our professor told us that the electoral college was made to prevent candidates like Trump from taking the throne. He also told us about climate change- which still surprises me how there are still people that do not believe it exists or do not take it seriously- and how Trump plans to decrease funds in several projects. His presidency sounds like a balloon of poison waiting to burst. I initially thought that his presidency wouldn’t amount to much considering there was a system of checks and balances in the federal government but, even then he still has the potential to do so much damage.

To be frank, I don’t believe most people feel connected or involved in American government or its issues unless it directly affects their line of work. For all my years, I never felt relevant nor affected by whatever bill had been passed or the different laws between each state. But now it’s different; there is a pot of fear and anxiety boiling over in my stomach each time I hear of another intolerable behavior happening in a place like New York City- “a place like New York City,”  a place popular for its diversity, for its generally liberal stance on things- and now you got people punching the elderly for being a particular race or following a specific religion.

When we approached Election Day, the fact that one of our presidential candidates was Trump wasn’t what surprised me; it was the number of people at his rallies, the amount of hate crimes that spiked up because of his presence and empty speeches, it was the amount of videos posted online by people who got stopped and verbally (and sometimes physically) harassed by (often) a Trump supporter, it was the amount of blog posts that were written in lengths similar to that of sermon concerning evidence and reasons why you should not vote for Trump, it was the “Make America White Again” graffiti written with a swastika on a brick wall in the midst of the election.

It was a reminder that because we lived in a democracy, that people like members of the Ku Klux Klan had the right to assembly and to practice their beliefs. It was only (sort of) fine if they didn’t physically nor verbally harassed the other side but now with his presidency, people have become more outspoken about their prejudice. And now we have a president that supports that kind of behavior.

Joy.

The most storied election in United States history has come to end. For 60,981,118 people, their vote was not powerful enough. Yep, that is right, 60,981,118 people voted for Hillary Clinton, almost 600,000 more people than those voted for Donald Trump. Yet our new president-elect is not Hillary. Why is that? We can thank the Electoral College created some 150 years ago.

The winner of the election doesn’t have to be the most popular but just has to win more votes within states. And sometimes that can even lead to a loss. If you didn’t know what the Electoral College was before the election, you sure do now. Each state has a certain number of electoral vote which are given to the winner of that state. Donald Trump won more electoral votes and thus is our future president. People are outraged at such an outcome and even have created petitions to reverse the process and unelect Trump.

After reading more about the Electoral College, it really made me wonder where is the democracy in the process? The people voted Hillary. After the final vote count she will have won by more than a million votes so why is she not our president. The popular vote should be final. Trump won the election by undermining the process and attacking the flaws. He was able to get the people he needed to vote to win. He knew what people were the most important in the electoral college and what battleground states he needed to focus on. He gave up on New York and Califonia and put his time and effort on Iowa, Florida and Pensylvania. His effort prevailed and he is now the future of our America

President Trump. This entire mess is something that we are going to have to endure a while. After receiving 276 electoral votes, it seems our country has exercised its democratic voice and elected Trump as our leader. Throughout this entire race, people always feared and toyed with the absurd hypothetical notion that Trump–a reality TV star–may be our future leader. Although Clinton does have her fair share of haters, many assumed that our former Secretary of State would win this election by a landslide. However, in our present reality, this is not the case.

Did America, as a democracy, really just fail itself? Trump, who has effectively split not only the country, but also his own party, ran his campaign as an open racist, bigot, and misogynist. What does this say about us, specifically our central states, considering the fact that we were the ones who voted him in to be our leader? I recall my father, a registered Republican, telling me that he did not vote because he also does not think Trump is fit to be our president. “The stock market does not like uncertainty,” my father additionally kept uttering this remark as he was positive that the DOW would considerably drop should Trump be elected, and lo-and-behold he was right.

Should we re-evaluate our very essence of democracy? Trump, the very man who has called our system rigged, has just won in this “rigged system” and that is something we should be concerned about. According to Google, Clinton received 59,436,370 votes while Trump received 59,244,709 votes. Despite this, Trump got more electoral votes, but I wonder–since Trump won, will he do anything about this so-called “rigged system” of a democracy? Or, will he claim that America’s system is no longer rigged, since he won.

No matter the outcome of our next few years, in regards to voicing democracy, this could definitely be considered by some to be a colossal democratic failure. But who is to blame?

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/

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.

I noticed that most of the blog posts over the last few weeks are about democracy in the United States, however, we need to keep in mind that democracy also exists in other countries, and South Korea being one of them, its democracy is being threatened by the scandal that its President Park Geun-hye is involved in and possibly controlled by a Shamanistic cult.

The story starts with the discovery of some of Ms. Park’s speeches that are edited by her close friend Choi Soon-sil, who doesn’t hold any official position in the government. According to the New York times article “A Presidential Friendship Has Many South Koreans Crying Foul” by Choe Sang-hun, “she even had power over the president’s wardrobe, overseeing the design of her dresses and telling her what colors to wear on certain days.” As the investigation goes on, people find out that Ms. Choi’s father Choi Tae-min, is the founder of a mysterious cult called the Church of Eternal Life, and also the mentor of Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, the President of South Korea from 1963 to 1979. There have been rumors surrounding Ms. Park and Mr. Choi’s relationship even before she is elected. As the article states, “In a 2007 diplomatic cable made public through WikiLeaks, the American Embassy in Seoul reported rumors that Mr. Choi ‘had complete control over Park’s body and soul during her formative years and that his children accumulated enormous wealth as a result.’ One such tale held that Ms. Park, who has never married, had his child. ” It is possible that his religious influence is passed on to his daughter, and if Ms. Park is a member of the cult, Ms. Choi is able to affect the President’s decisions or even her policy making.

Ms. Park has apologized for receiving help from Ms.Choi in her speeches, but she never acknowledged any involvement with her father’s cult. If the scandal is proven to be true, it means that there is no such thing as democracy in the Korean government since the President is following the orders from some secret organization instead of the will of the citizens, but the fact that someone outside of the government has such influence over the President without its people knowing already crumbles the democratic images of South Korea in our minds.

Many Americans are looking to see if third parties candidates can do more than just spoil the elections.The two major party nominees, Trump and Clinton, are disliked by many Americans and are the least popular presidential nominees in history. Polls showed that Clinton among registered voters was 42 percent favorable and 56 percent unfavorable. On the other hand,Trump was favorable at 37 percent and unfavorable at 62 percent . This means that voter turnout matters more than any other presidential election.

In John Oliver ‘s video about third parties in the election, he examines closely and showed that there isn’t a perfect third party candidate either. John Oliver discusses the third party nominees’ policies and views on important issues like student debt and climate change. I agreed with what John Oliver is saying because the nominees were just spouting simplistic views that are hard to implement.  And when you look deeper into them, most of them doesn’t make sense.

From the Green party, Jill Stein plans to cancel student’s debt by making the government pay for it like they did banks. While this may sound like a great plan, John Oliver points out that her plan is unachievable and cracks when analyzed deeper. Another candidate is Gary Johnson. His plan is to make the federal government as small as possible. His answer, regarding to having a smaller government, is to shut down important federal agencies like education, housing and urban development, and commerce. He also opposes establishing a minimum wage which is harmful to Americans in the middle and lower class. Their plans are going to hurt the American government more than before. An important point to make is that the video is disliked by at least 20k people because people commented that he is just spreading propaganda and misrepresenting Jill Stein’s plans. It is also interesting to see that the media plays an essential role in the presidential election.

We can conclude that there is no perfect candidate in this race. John Oliver says “When people say that we have to choose  lesser of two evils, they are right because we have to choose the lesser of 4”. Now, I realized that these third party candidates are not any better than Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/with-eight-days-before-presidential-election-a-barometer-of-where-things-stand/2016/10/30/d2eb8924-9eb2-11e6-b74c-603fd6bbc17f_story.html

It’s hard to believe that idea of democracy is over 2000 years old, especially since we consider America to be one of earliest the democratic powerhouses. This just isn’t true, there have been many societies which have used democracy to govern its people. Although, it is worth mentioning that the democracy we see today is different from democracy in it’s earliest stages. Greece is one of the oldest societies to have records of democracy which span back to the 6th Century B.C.E. Their democracy focused on leaders who were chosen by the people, usually the elders, and worked alongside the public to manage the village or community.  This is referred to as tribalism or primitive democracy and it is very similar to our version of democracy. The only differences are that in tribalism, the leaders aren’t officially elected but rather, recommended by the people. Unlike in the current form of democracy, the leaders only interacted with people from their community, there was not a larger form of government to connect them.

The next step towards our modern democracy can be seen in Rome at around 450 B.C.E.  The last king of Rome lost his position in 510 B.C.E when a group of aristocrats acted on social unrest and removed him from power. A new constitution was crafted but it left the plebians, the middle and lower class people of the time, unsatisfied. After much backlash, Rome instituted a group of new laws, the Twelve Tables, along with a group of new leaders. Said leaders could only govern for two years but the new laws allowed the plebeians to run for political positions. This form of democracy is very complex and but somewhat similar to ours. A major difference was that there were two Consuls, the Roman equivalent of a president. Another difference is that senators had to be rich and own land to be a part of the senate. Other than that, there are few differences between our democracy and the Roman democracy. The Roman senate passed laws and policies and the assemblies, were institutions that allowed the public to cast votes.

The democracies of the past are slightly different to the form of democracy seen in the U.S. today, however, we can see the influence it has had on us. Although it would be much later until we would see the three branches of government the fundamental values were there all along. Its longevity goes to show, how effective and practical democracy truly is.

In the third presidential debate, Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the election.  Trump stated that the media is so dishonest and so corrupt and they poison the minds of the voters. He even stated that Hillary Clinton should not be allowed to run because she is guilty of a very serious crime. Trump’s refusal received heavy criticism.  I think that it is outrageous for Trump to say that he has so little faith in this country and he won’t accept the results if he loses. As a presidential candidate he should be respecting the country and its democracy, not discrediting it. It shows that Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, is not qualified to run for president.  He is belittling and talking down on our democracy.  President Obama even showed disapproval of Trump as he states,  “when you’re whining before the game is even finished shows that you’re not up for the job.”  In Trump’s universe, he is always the winner and now that he is falling behind in the polls, his only answer to his defeat is fraud. As Clinton mentioned in the debate, every time Trump loses or something is not in favor of him, he claims that it is “rigged.” I feel like this debate clearly show that Trump is not qualified to run for president. His mindset is completely wrong.  How can someone who is looking down on American Democracy become president? It just doesn’t make any sense. I literally scoffed at his position and dismayed that a presidential candidate is unwilling to concede for the good of the country that has been part of the US  tradition for years. The acceptance of the election results is fundamental to our democracy. If Trump does not win the election, it is most definitely not because the presidential campaign is rigged but because he failed as a candidate. He was never prepared to become our leader.