My (nonpartisan) thoughts on the upcoming election. . .

Nonpartisan.  If you know me, you’ve already rolled your eyes at the thought that I’m going to be able to write this down the middle.  Here goes nothing:

I got hooked on HBO’s, “The Newsroom.”  A friend challenged me to watch the first episode several years ago, and I was immediately hooked.  In that first episode, the lead character is asked why, “America is the greatest country in the world.”  His response brought me chills, and still does.  The crux of his response was quite simply that, “it isn’t.”  America isn’t the greatest country in the world.

“It sure used to be… We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reason. We passed laws, struck down laws, for moral reason. We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists AND the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy.”

I’m old.  Not old-old.  But old enough to remember a time when I truly thought that America was the greatest country in the world.  I remember when pride in our country didn’t equate to being a redneck, gun-toting, muslim-hating, gay-bashing, bible-slinging, beer-swigging, country music blaring. . . well you get the point.  It seems as though now being proud to be, “all about #Merica” is some sort of negative thing.  How did we get here?  How did we get to a place where one of the world’s greatest superpowers has become a punch line to the jokes of the rest of the world.  And boy, we aren’t helping much.

In fact, this impending presidential election is without a doubt making things much worse.  Much, much worse.  This upcoming election will be highly contested.  There will be a litany of ads disparaging both parties (with very few actually talking about the “good” aspects of either candidate).  No matter what side of the election you’re on, is your choice really a good one?

To my Republican friends:  the fact that your party can’t put up a candidate for the upcoming presidential election that doesn’t wipe the floor with Hillary is disgusting.  It shouldnt’ be close.

To my Democrat friends:  the fact that your party can’t put up a candidate for the upcoming presidental election that doesn’t wipe the floor with Trump is disgusting.  It shouldn’t be close.

No matter which side you support, do you truly believe this is the best that your party has to offer?  Do you truly believe your candidate is an accurate representation of you?  Do you truly believe your candidate is an accurate representation of this country?  Do you truly believe that your candidate represents the best this country has to offer?  Do you think that your candidate is the best American to represent us amongst the rest of the leaders in this world?

Throughout history, our presidents have represented the best of us (irrespective of what you think of the last several. . .).  They were always best of what our country had to offer.  Our presidents were our commanders.  Our presidents were real leaders.  They were there to lead us, not to be led by what’s best for corporations paying for their campaigns.  They led us against attackers both foreign and domestic.  They took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution.  They desired what was best for us…each of us.

I don’t think Trump wants what’s best for me.  I don’t think Hillary does either.  I don’t believe this is the best we have to offer.  I think we can do so much better, I truly believe we deserve a much better representation of us…of, “We the people.”  We.  What will it take for us to move from an us/them mentality to a, “we” again?

We aren’t debating the issues.  We aren’t arguing about what will make this country better.  We aren’t building each other up the way our forefathers imagined.  We’ve come so far what our founding fathers imagined we would be.  I fear we haven’t gone in the right direction though.

My genuine fear is that this election will be so polarizing that irrespective of which candidate wins, one thing will be certain:  “we” all lose.

So, before you post (or yell) about how horrible the other guy or gal is, I’d simply ask you to look at your candidate and ask, “Is this really the best our country has to offer?”

I think an honest answer will be, “no.”  So when we’re faced with the realization that these candidates are not the best we have to offer, that this country is not as great as it once was (and no, I’m not pandering to the, “make America great again” crowd), and we are each faced with the stark realization that we are perhaps moving backwards as a nation. . .we are left with a simple choice:  continue down this separatist path of destruction, or embark on a brand new journey of America.

Our two-party system is broken.  This election is proof.  Our country is broken…just look around.  We can fix it though.  I truly believe we can.

The aforementioned clip–warning, there’s some strong language