My wife spent Tuesday in bed with a nasty case of the stomach flu. Rather than keep her awake in our bedroom by watching the election results, I migrated to the guest bedroom with another TV and viewed the news. While the country focused on the presidential race, I hoped to find out how some of our local elections fared. Unfortunately the majority of the news focused on who would become the nation's next president.
My wife is surprised at how much time I spent focused on this year's election. She is the Political Science major and so I usually just ask her who to vote for. This year I felt the need to do my own research and decide for myself the best candidates. In the past two presidential elections I felt I couldn't vote for any of the candidates and wrote in "Tom Hanks." He's a likeable guy and would probably win if he ever decided to run. I know that I threw my vote away and so this year I wanted to vote for someone that represented what I want to see in the government.
One thing I noticed while doing research is that you cannot trust the mainstream media for fair and unbiased reporting. We all have our favorite candidates and adjust the narrative to reinforce our position. It is a natural human trait and I can't fault the journalists for doing so. Unfortunately the CBS news show "60 Minutes" crossed the line with their interview of a presidential candidate. A question was asked and the candidate responded. 60 Minutes then went back and edited the answer. The answer they put in came from a completely different question. It is only because of the Internet that we have both answers and know the gravity of what took place. It is important to note that I do not fault the candidate for the actions of 60 Minutes. Decades of journalistic integrity disappeared after this stunt and I have stopped watching any news show from CBS.
After doing my own research, I discovered it takes a lot of work to find out what the truth really is. Truths have been reported as lies and in other situations, lies have been spread unchecked. The unfortunate result of all these lies is that the public has become polarized to the point of hating the other side. Once the emotion of hate enters our minds, it is difficult for logic to temper our actions.
Now that the election is over, I have seen both sides trying to do the right thing. The winner seems gracious and the name calling has stopped. The loser seems gracious and is encouraging her supporters to continue to push for the changes she hoped to enact if she had won. Unfortunately there are a number of people on the Internet sharing videos of themselves reacting emotionally to the outcome. I started watching a YouTube video created by someone whose candidate won and it showed all of the emotional breakdowns of those who supported the other candidate. I didn't watch long as I found it to be in poor taste. Instead of gloating over a win and delighting in the suffering of the other side, we should all be reaching out and trying to understand the issues others felt so strongly about and why.
I did not watch the second presidential debate in this election cycle but I did watch the only VP debate. I came away having more respect for both candidates. While I had vilified one candidate thanks to the news, I realized both candidates agreed significantly and that put us all on more common ground than I originally thought.
My hope is that we can all come together and accomplish great things. Feelings may be hurt because a friend or family member voted for the other side. Now that the election is over, I hope we can forgive and rekindle those important relationships.
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