Current election and all elections in a nutshell: I support the freedoms America was built on and limited government. If any politician does something that supports these ideas, I will support these actions from this candidate. If they take actions counter to the American values and the constitution and Bill of Rights, I will NOT support these actions. I support actions, not people.
And if I was forced to pick a candidate—like you do when you vote—I would choose the candidate that takes more pro-America actions than the other.
It is as simple as that. And I believe it is every American's duty to do the same thing. You pick a person that is more pro-America than the other.
Anyone that does anything to threaten America, whether you like them or hate them, CANNOT be chosen.
Yet, most people will not vote based on rationality. They will vote based on feelings—fear, bias, prejudice, agenda, outrage.
They will vote for candidates that lie to them and pander to their fears and prejudices. And worst of all, they will vote for the candidate they hate less regardless of policy or actions.
Most people in America vote for candies based on what they hear them say on TV.
This is why politics in America is nothing but reality TV, with the natural polarization that comes from any figure in the public's eye.
You get one side that supports and one side that doesn't support. And they go at each other round and round, bickering mostly about stupid shit that doesn't matter.
Again: if a candidate is more pro-America than another, that person gets my pick.
This is regardless of whether I like or dislike this person. Furthermore, I tend to like or dislike a politician—when I care to pay attention to politics—based on what they DO, not what they SAY.
Yet again, most people have no idea about policy or laws or actions. Instead, they focus on what a politician says on TV or Twitter or what they apparently said or didn't say coming from the propaganda machine called "news."
In 2020, as I've become somewhat interested in what's going on politically, mostly due to freedoms being taken away in the name of "safety," I've observed that most people know little about the issues and actions of the political figures they spend so much time loving or hating.
In Trump's case, most people don't like him because he is not a good speaker. He comes off as brash and uncouth, and he says dumb and insensitive things regularly.
And this is what I see people writing about, talking about, arguing about, yelling about, even protesting about.
I hardly see anyone talking about his policies or actions (unless it's used to smear him, which the left-leaning media does daily).
What people fail to realize about Trump and any controversial figure is why he garners the attention he does—because he polarizes.
As P. T. Barnum said, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."
All of this is why watching a debate and discussing it is pointless.
All of this is why MOST PEOPLE, like 99.99%, will never change their minds about someone they like or dislike based on anything you do or say.
Changing one's mind about anything, especially a person they feel strongly about, takes a long time, and few ever do it.
Finally, the problem with politics is people want to pick a side and defend that side no matter how illogical or absurd or dangerous or crazy that side becomes.
Since I've paid attention, the Left has taken the cake for most absurd in my book.
Ideas like socialism and marxism don't work and never will and are used by pandering politicians on the Left to perpetuate division-based narratives that speak to the emotional, illogical side of human nature. The Left's entire strategy is: You are the victim, and if you vote for me, I will take care of you while putting down your oppressors.
The victim narrative is destructive and disgusting and insidious because it is a farce that only ends up keeping people victims.
This is why the Left's narrative is always based on things like race, income inequality, rich vs. poor, male vs. female, straight vs. not, etc. Their entire strategy is based on making people angry by highlighting certain imperfections in society and amplifying them to tap into the inner outrage inside every human when the US VS THEM narrative is triggered.
All politicians play the Us vs. Them card, so highlighting one side is not excusing the other. This is where the nuance comes in with politics, and why you must have nuance to discuss anything rationally.
When you turn anything into Us vs. Them, you lose.
The truth is always somewhere in the middle. If that middle gets skewed because one side goes to the extreme pole, then the "old middle" will end up claimed by the side that, historically, would not have claimed that middle.
This is, in my opinion, precisely what has happened with the left vs. the Right. The Left has gone so batshit crazy that much of the Right has been pulled into that middle that the Left used to claim.
And this brings me back to the idea of pro-America vs. not.
We must vote for America when we vote. Every president is a proxy for this vote. We are not voting for a man or a woman; we are voting for whoever will be more America than the other candidate.
The problem with politics will always be rooted in divide and in the dangers of focusing on individual humans. The best form of government is the most limited, the most decentralized (spread out), and the most centered. The worst form of government is centralized, divisive, and big.
Can you guess which America has become?