Trump: 0, Corncob: 1
Okay. So I’m not one to rant about my political views. Like ever.
When my students ask me who I’m voting for I say Tom Hanks.
I don’t often find value in spewing my political opinions on others because so many people do that already so who’s even got time to listen to what I have to say on the matter?
However lately things have gone too far and I shan’t hold me tongue any longer. No I shan’t.
The political platform used to be a place to instigate change; a place to transform the nation and heal the country after wartime woes. Politics have always been a means to create equality and unity on a national scale. Now, let’s be clear on one thing:
Political leaders have always been hated.
After Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States he literally had to be shipped secretly in a midnight train to the White House to avoid assassination attempts.
Rough gig, Abe.
Historically, all presidential leaders and candidates have been criticized for some reason or another. I’m sure if I ran for president I’d have my own personal team of specialists just to sort through all the hate mail.
But I’m not running for president you see, because I’m not qualified to do so.
Running a country is kind of a big job to do. It requires knowledge of international affairs, negotiation techniques, economic wherewithal, public speaking skills, and like a lot of paperwork and signing of serious looking things like Amendments to the Constitution and education bills and whatnot.
That’s a lot of power for one person. But as Spiderman’s uncle once said,
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
And I rather liked that guy.
Maybe he should run for president. Oh wait, that bad guy in the first movie killed him. Darn it.
The reason I’m writing today is not to go on a gigantic sh-peal about politics and tell you who’s agenda is the worst or why our country is doomed.
Nah.
I simply want to point out that things are getting out of hand and we should all promptly pull our heads out of our you-know-what’s when it comes to politics in America.
Let’s just broach the topic of Donald Trump. To me he’s a topic of discussion, yes a person (albeit one with a horrific head of hair), but also the butt of every joke I hear these days.
For the longest time I paid no attention to Trump because I was sure it was a publicity stunt and would blow over in a matter of weeks along with his hair piece. My mother refers to him as a "flash in the pan;" sure to make a big headline but not something to last over time. Nope, still hearing about that guy. So I did some research and found some of his policies.
Immigration Reform: According to Trump’s website, his campaign to “Make America Great Again” contains three pillars of immigration reform:
A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.
Included in this reform is his campaign to end Birthright Citizenship and deport all illegal aliens from the United States back to Mexico. Now this is a hot button, so we’re not going to get into it right now.
But I do think to really understand this issue we have to go back in history and back to our roots. The true Americans, meaning the first Americans who actually lived on this land since day one, have all been slaughtered and moved onto small reservations.
There I said it.
Native Americans. They are the true Americans. The rest of us came from elsewhere and “claimed” this country as our own as is the human way for all of history of all time. So historically speaking we are all immigrants of some kind, but that’s a whole separate conversation and you can now send hate mail to my receptionist Tammy.
Aside from Trump’s immigration reform (which we will not get into right now as I said), there’s not a whole lot I can gather about his political platform from his campaign website. So I did more research. What I found was a list of country issues and his stances on them, supported by citations and direct quotes. You can find the full list here.
I will say that not all of his positions are publicized by the media. But if you look a bit closer at some of the hot buttons like civil rights, you can see he has changed his mind about them in the past few years and made quite a few headlines as of late.
If you were wondering about his take on women as “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” you can find his thoughts as well as a video with Fox News here:
Now as if it weren’t enough that this man is trying to become president, we now have Exhibit B:
Kanye West, future presidential candidate in 2020.
All Hail Yeezy.
For Jimmy Kimmel’s comparison of these two candidate’s here’s this: