Down the Rabbit Hole of American Primaries: The Clinton/Sanders/Trump Dilemna
This morning, while procrastinating on my couch (Disclaimer: I am home sick and have nothing else to do but cough and feel terrible, since I can't sleep), I had an interesting conversation about American politics. The subject began with my statement that, after seeing the Republican candidates debate on March 3rd, 2016, I hope that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders run together on the Democratic card in November. In a perfect world, they would be ideal candidates for president and vice president. One balances the other, so to speak.
Now, I am aware that statements like this tend to inspire a certain friendly controversy. Depending on how each of us sees the state of America at the moment (and being non-citizens need not exclude us from preforming our own analyses), the most obvious choices are to agree or disagree. That is as far as the statement can go at this point - the primary has not been decided, and no one has chosen a running mate as yet. This would keep the discussion short and sweet.
But as we all know, nothing in politics is ever that. Because there exists a third option, and that is to take one or the other position and then argue as to why it is either likely or unlikely to happen. Given current pessimism as to the state of the world, I think the latter is probably the more interesting of the two. Ie: They would never do so because they're running against one another in the primary and are too ideologically different to be compatible.
Now, I don't plan on regurgitating the conversation in whole - it's on my Facebook page already. However, I would like to draw attention to some of the fundamental points raised along the way.
The focus of my side of the debate was that we should not rule out the possibility simply because it seems unlikely to happen. Politics are a somewhat unpredictable beast, as are the voting patterns of the electorate. In short, whatever trend-line evidence we have at the moment (ie. statistics) should not lead us to a conclusion that what has happened already and is happening now will be definitive of what will happen when the votes are counted in November. There's a lot of ground still to cover before anyone gets the keys to the White House. I'm not saying there won't be any correlation between the numbers of today and the numbers of the future, I am simply saying that whatever correlation there is likely won't be strong enough to base our predictions on. Obviously, the closer we get to the event, the better our predictions will be. One caveat, however, is that polls have been quite unreliable recently.
I think of it in terms of an analogy, which makes sense since I'm an arts grad. Consider the following: just because the ground is green doesn't mean there's grass growing. There are any number of reasons why this statement can be true. Likewise, it can be false. Perhaps someone painted concrete green. Perhaps someone laid down astroturf. Or perhaps there really is grass growing. Without knowing specifically what patch of earth I'm talking about, there's no way to know for sure.
The same holds true for discussions about politics, particularly when dealing with future outcomes. Current trends can point towards what is likely to happen, but between differing priorities, external pressures, individual personalities and swaying public opinion (often an elephant in the room), there's a lot of wiggle room there. Consequently, every discussion that takes place at this point in the game is an act of supposition. Largely we are either arguing about or listening to best and worst case scenarios. The commonality between the two is striking: each is designed specifically to make the opposition as uncomfortable as possible. Ie. What is best for Democrats will absolutely horrify Republicans, and vice versa. That is how political coverage works. An ounce of information turns into many pounds of exploitable content.
Hell, I turned a lengthy debate (mostly on my part) about a single statement into this here blog post. All anyone really needs to do is ask a simple question of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. And please note that I've formulated this question with Democrats in mind. Here it is:
If you were faced with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for President of the United States, would you put aside your differences and run together for the sake of America and the rest of the world?
You see how easy it is to polarize the issue? I hope so.
Anyhow, that's it for me. As always, thanks for reading!
Now, I am aware that statements like this tend to inspire a certain friendly controversy. Depending on how each of us sees the state of America at the moment (and being non-citizens need not exclude us from preforming our own analyses), the most obvious choices are to agree or disagree. That is as far as the statement can go at this point - the primary has not been decided, and no one has chosen a running mate as yet. This would keep the discussion short and sweet.
But as we all know, nothing in politics is ever that. Because there exists a third option, and that is to take one or the other position and then argue as to why it is either likely or unlikely to happen. Given current pessimism as to the state of the world, I think the latter is probably the more interesting of the two. Ie: They would never do so because they're running against one another in the primary and are too ideologically different to be compatible.
Now, I don't plan on regurgitating the conversation in whole - it's on my Facebook page already. However, I would like to draw attention to some of the fundamental points raised along the way.
The focus of my side of the debate was that we should not rule out the possibility simply because it seems unlikely to happen. Politics are a somewhat unpredictable beast, as are the voting patterns of the electorate. In short, whatever trend-line evidence we have at the moment (ie. statistics) should not lead us to a conclusion that what has happened already and is happening now will be definitive of what will happen when the votes are counted in November. There's a lot of ground still to cover before anyone gets the keys to the White House. I'm not saying there won't be any correlation between the numbers of today and the numbers of the future, I am simply saying that whatever correlation there is likely won't be strong enough to base our predictions on. Obviously, the closer we get to the event, the better our predictions will be. One caveat, however, is that polls have been quite unreliable recently.
I think of it in terms of an analogy, which makes sense since I'm an arts grad. Consider the following: just because the ground is green doesn't mean there's grass growing. There are any number of reasons why this statement can be true. Likewise, it can be false. Perhaps someone painted concrete green. Perhaps someone laid down astroturf. Or perhaps there really is grass growing. Without knowing specifically what patch of earth I'm talking about, there's no way to know for sure.
The same holds true for discussions about politics, particularly when dealing with future outcomes. Current trends can point towards what is likely to happen, but between differing priorities, external pressures, individual personalities and swaying public opinion (often an elephant in the room), there's a lot of wiggle room there. Consequently, every discussion that takes place at this point in the game is an act of supposition. Largely we are either arguing about or listening to best and worst case scenarios. The commonality between the two is striking: each is designed specifically to make the opposition as uncomfortable as possible. Ie. What is best for Democrats will absolutely horrify Republicans, and vice versa. That is how political coverage works. An ounce of information turns into many pounds of exploitable content.
Hell, I turned a lengthy debate (mostly on my part) about a single statement into this here blog post. All anyone really needs to do is ask a simple question of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. And please note that I've formulated this question with Democrats in mind. Here it is:
If you were faced with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for President of the United States, would you put aside your differences and run together for the sake of America and the rest of the world?
You see how easy it is to polarize the issue? I hope so.
Anyhow, that's it for me. As always, thanks for reading!
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