Brexit, Donald Trump, And The Travesty Of Modern Politics

2016 will probably go down as one of the most WTF?! year of all time, right?

It started with the untimely deaths of so many of our idols, then a little thing we like to call Brexit happened.

I woke up that morning certain that the country I lived in wasn’t so easily led by promises with no substance spouted by the Leave camp. Yes, many people voted Leave for legitimate reasons, but then when I heard a grown man say he voted Leave because BHS had closed but ‘Polish shoes are every-f***ing-where’, you begin to think not everyone’s vote was educated and well thought out.

The fact that the most popular search term on Google that day in the UK was ‘what is the European Union?’ proved that people didn’t know what they were voting for. Excuses such as ‘keeping the Muslims out’, ‘sending the immigrants back to where they came from’, ‘the EU tell us how our banana’s should look’, ‘I miss the old times’ did not sit well with me. It shocked me how ill-informed people who went to vote were.

I woke up that morning and felt uncertain. I’m not ashamed to admit it, it scared me. Seeing Farage on TV gloating and openingly admitting that they had not been truthful in their promises on the money saved from exiting the EU going to NHS made me feel sick. What had we done?

I felt something similar after watching the US Election vote early on the morning of 10th November. I’m not American, nor do I have any connection to America but American politics has always interested me. I sat and watched the Obama/McCain election night in my student diggs and cried when Obama won his second term. I sat and watch the Clinton/Trump battle and felt tearful but for a different reason. I held out hope for the last remaining swing states to vote Clinton’s way and watched in disbelief as states predicted to vote Democratic were called for Trump so early.

I’ve always been aware of Trump, he’s not such a big name in the UK or Europe as he may think he is, he was previously known as ‘the guy who does Lord Sugar’s bit on the American version of The Apprentice’. I thought his run would be a joke, a laughing stock, how can people take his speeches filled with such hateful and uneducated rhetoric seriously?

His behavior has been unacceptable throughout his campaign, but whilst it was controversial and at times he resembled a petulant child trying to get his own way, you cannot deny that it was ultimately successful. Don’t get me wrong, Hillary is not a saint, but she was the only viable option surely?

Trump ran his campaign just to win, Clinton ran hers to become President and rule her country.

His campaign reeked of a rich man who had bought himself everything he had ever wanted, done everything he had ever wanted and now decided ‘I want to be President’ so he bought that too.

The idea of a Trump administration scares me. He’s in bed with Nigel Farage and now Boris Johnson is on the action. It’s like a twisted and corrupt version of Charlie’s Angels. (An image you’ll be stuck with for some time, you’re welcome).

Seeing Trump, a man who openly ridiculed a disabled journalist, a man who shrugs off the notion of grabbing women by their genitalia as ‘locker room’ talk, a man spoke of potentially dating his own daughter if she wasn’t his daughter, a man who responds to ‘haters’ on his Twitter account more than a teenager in a childish fight, a man who fronted the ‘birther’ movement, a man who cares more about the ratings of a TV show than the welfare of every citizen of the country he is about to become President regardless of their color or creed become President of the Free World is terrifying.

Does this mean that his behavior is now acceptable? I understand people vote for the party, not necessarily the person fronting the campaign, but how could those people stand by his behavior, his ideologies? That’s the real sadness.

I see the votes for Trump as people who are happy to put all that aside and still back him as the right person to run their country. What sort of message does that send to future generations?

And I thought Brexit was a travesty.