Politics Shmolitics

Carrie Laudie | Editor-in-chief

It would seem that every few days a new Presidential hopeful comes out of nowhere and throws their hat in the ring. Whether this represents absolute chaos or the beauty of democracy is really hard to tell. The worst sides of the candidates have been exposed early on in the race. With the buffoonery of Donald Trump, and the sad attempts of

Republican hopefuls to steal the spotlight from him, it is hard to take your eyes away from the train wreck that the

Republican Party has become early on in the process. With (at last count) 16 declared GOP candidates, it is hard to tell who will receive the nomination by the time it comes along.

One thing is very clear; Trump won’t be it. If he runs as an independent, he will pull enough of the votes away from Republicans that a president from that party will be extremely unlikely. For the sake of the party every Republican should be praying that he will crawl back into the racist, narcissistic hole that he crawled out of.

The political process resembles a clown car at the moment. It would seem that the nominees are seeing how many people they can shove into a tiny space – after all there can only be one nominee – and the winner will be the one who survives.

There is only so much news coverage to go around and, when it is filled with antics and inflammatory comments, it hurts everyone involved.

On the side of the Democrats, Hillary Clinton seemed to think that she would be able to glide into the White House with very little trouble. Her confidence going into the presidential race was understandable, considering the mess that the GOP currently is.

The appearance of Bernie Sanders in the race has increasingly taken potential votes away from Clinton. His appearance in the field has created some drama on the Democrat side, but just your run of the mill political theater, nothing to make the talking heads go crazy.

Sanders might not be able to pull off the nomination because he is too far left, but he at least adds to the discussion. He’s Trump, without the crazy.

The field of players for the Democrats is smaller, with only five declared candidates, and the majority of press coverage has been relatively quiet. There is a possibility that the Democrats are just biding their time and letting the Republicans do the dirty work of tearing each other apart before they actively engage in the sparring match.

Politics is theater for the simple reason that listening to politicians talk about their views on issues is boring. We crave the drama in news, and the political arena is delivering it to us this season.

With Trump’s tantrum when he released the personal phone number of a senator, and also when Ted Cruz, who went to Harvard Law School, saying that states could ignore the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, we have had no shortage of entertainment and it has been a veritable circus.