Election Stream of Consciousness

It's one week until the election!  Which, for some of us, is better than the Super Bowl, but also that might be a sad thing because politics is a full-on circus of everyone having their fav team and being fiercely loyal for no apparent reason.  Do you ever catch yourself parroting something you heard on the news and realize that you have no clue if it's real or important or true?  

I do.  And, if you can honestly say that you've never accidentally done that, you might need to take a teensy look inward.  

Here's my thing with the election.  I think it is your duty to vote.  I know that TECHNICALLY it is your right, but I think you should be more invested in your life than that.  People who say they "hate" or "don't do" politics baffle me.  I guess you can hate it, fine, but you should still participate in it.  It's like the Miranda Priestly speech that, yes, in fact, high fashion will affect your small little life in some way or another.  Politics will affect you, whether in a big or small way, so you owe it to yourself to be invested in the process.  To care what happens and why, and understand your options when it comes to voting.  Of course, a lot of this happens at the local level, and you should vote in ALL elections, but it applies here, too.  Learn what the plans are, think in your brain if they sound right to you, research more, and make a determination.  

I really think that 3rd party candidates aren't a viable option for this election.  I know there's a lot of "but if we allllll voted for it!" and that might be true, but in general enough people are going to vote for the 2 major candidates that in all mathematical likelihood one of them will be the president elect next week.  You will be eating ice cream regardless, there are 2 flavors to choose from, so pick your fav and go with it.  

I really wish we could find a way to encourage gentle separation of church and state in our society.  I also find it one of the most ironic things in the world that people who generally self-advertise as obsessed with the constitution also encourage people to vote in a biblical sense, whatever that means.  You have to see the irony there, right?  The founding fathers LITERALLY made this country to escape religious persecution (and other reasons, I know), then decided that there should be a separation of church and state.  And the founding fathers' fanboys are all JESUS WANTS IT THIS WAY.  I mean, please.  

I also think we need to distance ourselves from headlines, and put ourselves more in the way of information.  For example: anything potentially exciting that we find out about either candidate gets splashed about in the most ridiculous way, and I think people on both sides tend to share information without reading it.  TRUMP WANTS TO GRAB EVERYONE'S PUSSY and HILLARY IS INVOLVED IN EVERYONE DYING EVER are both untrue, we know that.  But still we can't bring ourselves to read more than one article at a time on the subject, and the media fully capitalizes on that because it is terribly exciting when everyone goes bonkers every 2 days.  That's why they do it that way, guys.  You could try, instead, looking up things that you don't think are true.  Hell, Google the name of your candidate with "is a good person" after it, and click on something that isn't Wikipedia or a news outlet that you always agree with.  Love CNN?  Click the Fox link.  Hate all major media?  Npr's good.  You might be surprised that we are still dealing with 2 people who have been in the public eye for a long time and have made choices, some good and some bad, just like you have been doing your entire life.  

I'm sure I don't need to tell you who I'm voting for or why I am or tell you 40 links on why this person is the most qualified for the job they are applying for.  I would ESPECIALLY encourage you to look at the candidate you "hate" the most in search of good, or potential.  These 2 people are applying for a job, plain and simple.  If you are voting for one simply out of disdain for the other, take the week to learn, if for your own curiosity than anything else.  I think we all stand to stay away from headlines we think are silly ("Hillary is the best person ever with no supporting arguments!  Donald Trump is gay for Putin!" are probably not useful titles to click on), read things thoughtfully and carefully, and be ok with our fav writers or news outlets sensationalizing things for the sake of clicks or readers.  Like it or not, they're trying to do a job too, and it's not always to be boring and unbiased, no matter how much we might like that.  

You have a week!  Go and celebrate your choices, and if you are all "how did we get here?" just vote, move on, and take the next 4 years to make changes.  But participate, please.  You've earned it.