Columns, Opinion

STROINSKI: Don’t look to debates for answers

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump debated, town-hall style, on Sunday night in front of crowd of undecided voters. There wasn’t much tact or discussion of policy, but, rather, a substantial amount of mud-slinging on both ends. But that’s not a new phenomenon; Thomas Jefferson accused John Adams of having “neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman” in 1776 and, in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt’s campaign trail insults made William Taft cry. However, there’s something more malicious about this election and it’s neither the fault of Donald Trump or of Hillary Clinton. It’s American philosophical tradition that’s to blame.

What do I mean? We were founded on some pretty cool values; individualism, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, republicanism — you can read it all at the next debate since they’ve got the Declaration of Independence in the backdrop. But they’re not inherently perfect. In practice, they are subject to distortion, and that’s exactly what has happened here.

In America, individualism is the law of the land. I have specific rights as an individual human being which have to be protected and respected. But the problem with individualism is that it can and often does lead to neglect of the larger community.

That, then, creates a kind of dissonance between the person’s individual will and the general will of the people. Why should I care about them? It doesn’t affect me.  

What does this do, then? It creates conditions that alienate us from collectivizing. Communities rot from the inside out, cause everyone’s concerned about themselves and we become even more isolated from each other. We divide into groups based on race, gender, sexuality and more, and we disagree even if our problems and concerns are the same. We don’t listen to one another and half the country nominates a demagogue and other half a standard, status-quo politician. But neither of them are going to solve the problem. Under Trump, it’s only going to get worse. Under Hillary, it’ll stay the same.

What I’ve gotten out of this election is that we have some serious issues. Beyond the electoral college, beyond policy, beyond the two-party system, beyond politics, beyond all of that, there is a problem with how we think at the most basic level. We care about the wrong things and not enough about the right ones. What caused this dissonance? It could be the ideas and rights that were founded on or it could be their distortion as they were applied unequally an interpreted differently throughout history.

Donald Trump supporters and Hillary Clinton supporters really shouldn’t be this divided if you think about it. We are all American citizens. We all want progress, albeit with different means. We’re all angry because we’ve reached this point.

If we don’t change how we think, we’re never going to solve any of the problems that we have. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are not going pull us out of the quicksand. We have to do that ourselves. It is better, though, to elect the one who won’t exasperate the problem. At least she won’t kick us down any further.

We need to stop looking at Clinton and at Trump for answers to problems they didn’t create. Watch the debate for fun, but if you’re undecided, don’t expect to be thrilled or inspired by what you see. Vote practically and then get to work by building pressure.

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