By Kaydee Donohoo
Staff Writer
Let’s assume for this entire article that Trump does not win. Imagine your excitement, after we hear the election results. We are so relieved, after we’ve narrowly escaped the most horrible presidential candidate we’ve ever seen. So what if a few conspiracy theorists in Trump’s camp question the validity of the election results? We might have won with a wide enough margin that they’re not getting much attention, anyway.
We then wipe our eyes from cry-laughing because we are suddenly free, and this weight off our shoulders has made us light-headed and giggly. We no longer have to look ahead to a Trump presidency, or the version of the country that has too many people suddenly thinking their racism, sexism, etc. no longer have to be hidden, and that they have a coalition.
Imagine how well we’ll sleep on the night of Nov. 8, after staying up a bit later than usual to see every state’s number pour in as well as the acceptance and concession speeches.
It all sounds so wonderful doesn’t it? So wonderful that we can almost taste it.
However, in still assuming that Trump does not win, we should not let our relief cloud our vision of the future.
Maybe you finally pushed your aversion to Hillary and her politics aside long enough to vote, for her or did so, just because you wanted to watch Trump and his supporters go down.
Perhaps having after having cared so much about the election for this long has just left you drained, and finally, especially if your ballot is in the mailbox, you are ready to slip into sweet sweet apathy as if it were a coma.
Yet, as great as that sounds come Hillary’s inauguration, we really need to come back from that rest and reignite the passion we had early found for politics when we were rooting for Bernie.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the campaign race between Trump and Hillary is lacking a bit of…substance and policy explanations. We’re missing a lot of the information we would have had about the kind of president Hillary would be if she actually ran against a real candidate.
With Trump Hillary has had a really low bar to seem appealing. She may or may not have been appealing in certain aspects, but it was a difficult year to gauge entirely without bias because of who was next to her on the debate stage.
The need to get someone who isn’t Trump in the White House led us to bypass a few things that may have cost Hillary the election were she running against a different Republican.
Hillary’s foreign policy is, to say the least, questionable, as are some of the ways Hillary has earned money for the Clinton Foundation. It is highly likely that she won the Democratic nomination with at least some level of unfairness. She is not anti-fracking enough, and may be too cozy with corporate money to initiate enough change.
Some of the anti-Hillary arguments out there are less worthy than others, however, would they have disqualified her without Trump? How much less-of-a-Trump would a Republican have to be to better considered better?
The long and short of it is that while we should be relieved that Trump won’t be president, we shouldn’t shrug our shoulders at Hillary in the White House and carry on with our lives knowing that no matter what happens, it is better than what could have happened. We still need to pay close attention and hold her accountable for anything she should not use her new power to do.
Yes, assuming Trump is defeated come election day take the night of the 8th to sleep soundly. Maybe even take the 9th to celebrate, look back on this election season and laugh it out with friends. Yet, on Nov. 10, let’s keep our new passion for politics, and keep the White House working for us.
