Note: Yay, it's an election year!

Everyone who knows me knows just how much I despise (and try to stay away from) politics. During family gatherings, I avoid giving my two-cents whenever politics inevitably comes up, and simply sit quietly till I have a chance to change the subject. Online, I heavily restrict my consumption of the news to fifteen minutes per day on my local news site, and make sure my Youtube recommendations are almost completely politics-free. 

However, every four years, politics slithers into my world whether or not I want it to. This year, it’s no different. Well… the fact that politics has barged its way back into my life is nothing new, but this year in particular has been a shitshow, so far. And, we’re still four months away from Election Day. 

For the record, I consider myself politically homeless, meaning I don’t identify with either party. I don’t like the republican party, nor do I like the democratic party. There are many policies on both sides of the political spectrum that I strongly disagree with, to the point that I just can’t comfortably vote for either party. Moreso, I’m greatly disappointed by the two presidential candidates that ran basically unopposed for reelection: Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 

Nobody really wanted a Trump vs Biden rematch, yet that’s exactly what we got. And, it’s already been a complete and utter disaster. 

A few weeks ago, the first presidential debate (if one could even call it a debate) was held. It was the earliest debate ever held, and many people saw it as Joe Biden’s chance to disprove the growing belief that he was (and is) too old and senile to be the president now, let alone for the next four years. Needless to say, Trump wiped the floor with Biden, not with facts (the facts absolutely were not on Trump’s side), but with optics. Compared to Biden, who fumbled every question and famously remarked, “Look, we beat Medicare!”, Trump looked like a spry, young man at 78 years old, and was able to spew his bullshit unopposed and with confidence. 

Since then, the democrats have been trying to figure out how (and even if) they can replace Biden with a younger, more likeable candidate, while democrat donors have withheld around $90 million bucks from Biden’s campaign in an attempt to make him drop out. Meanwhile, Biden came out a week or two ago and declared, “I won’t drop out unless God Almighty tells me to!” So… do with that what you will. 

Then, just a couple days ago, Trump was shot on live TV while giving a speech to a rally of his supporters in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania. The FBI is still trying to figure out how everything played out, so I don’t want to speculate. However, it’s pretty clear by the footage that seven shots rang out from outside of the rally, striking Trump in the ear, killing one rally-goer, and injuring several more. 

I can’t say that I was shocked to see the former president get shot and nearly killed. Trump’s a divisive character, after all, and attempted/successful assassinations of presidents and presidential candidates are nothing new. That said, it took me a few minutes to digest the information when my little brother came charging down the stairs shouting, “Trump got shot!” while I was making dinner. 

For the rest of the night, as much as I despise politics, my eyes were glued to the news as people tried to parse through what just happened. I watched the video of Trump getting shot and and rising again with his fist in the air, while his supporters went from screaming in panic to defiantly chanting, “USA, USA, USA!!!” as their candidate was shoved into a Secret Service SUV. 

I saw high-ranking democrats and republicans alike coming together to condemn the violence, and call for unity and peace among all Americans. But, I also saw plenty of people spreading conspiracy theories and glorifying the shooting, and stoking division further, which didn’t surprise me, but still saddened me. I decided that I’d fill my mind with better things than breaking political news an hour before bedtime, knowing that our nation’s law enforcement was hard at work trying to figure out exactly what happened last Saturday night. 

Details about the shooting are still fuzzy days later, so I won’t talk about the shooting itself anymore. All that I can say, for now, is that I’m getting sick and tired of living through “interesting times”, as I’m sure many of us are. 

But, ultimately I can't control or even influence my country's politics. So, at the end of the day, it is what it is, and my blog post I wrote four years ago lamenting the 2020 election year still stands.