Well, it’s here. Tonight those brave enough to tune in will get to witness the final presidential debate of 2016.
Up to this point I’ve been encouraging my fellow crusaders to tune in, and keep themselves informed. We’re choosing who will lead our country for the next four years (at least), it’s worth suffering through an hour and a half of political punches.
I stand by my opinion that you should make an informed decision about who you vote for in this presidential election, and you should suffer through tonight’s debate. Sorry if you were hoping for a change of heart, but I promise I’ll explain myself and why I think you should subject yourself to this self-inflicted torture.
Believe me, I completely understand anyone’s desire not to watch the debate. Presidential debates have traditionally been about moderators asking questions and politicians pivoting to cover their own personal talking points and in no way answer the actual question, this year has taken that practice to a whole new level. It’s also introduced name-calling and full-on temper tantrums. Some important issues have been discussed, but it’s been very brief and on the way to another shouting match.
So, why watch tonight? Well, in spite of the less than stellar behavior, these two individuals are the two main candidates for president. One of them will be president come January. While some of us would love to ignore one of the candidates all together, and have no interest in what he has to say, he still is the Republican presidential candidate.
That means quite a few people listened to him, heard what he said (or at least how he said it), and decided that he was the man they wanted to represent themselves in our government, and to the world’s leaders. There are some seriously upset people who voted for the man who they think could shout the loudest on their behalf. It’s easy to write these people off, say that you can’t understand why they would support someone who you can’t understand. But this is where we are.
Even if the man they want to be president is not elected into the office (which it looks like he won’t), they will still be there. This problem is not going away on November 9th. While the man running for president “on their behalf” may only shout nonsense this evening, perhaps some additional frustration will drive home the fact that there are better ways to communicate than shouting, and that working together might not be such a bad thing. Anything has to be better than this pre-election hell, right?
On that note, I’ll leave you to make your decision. Just make sure it’s the right one…
More on the Story: NY Times
…just for fun:
Something to very briefly take your mind off of the election…
