I watched bits and pieces from last night’s debate. I didn’t watch the whole thing, nor did I bother with finding the whole thing. My overactive mind would go haywire trying to watch the entire thing without yelling at the tv the whole time. I was screaming, “Shut up, felon!” at the few parts I saw.
I was also extremely busy last night, between overcomplicating a creative writing assignment, practicing choir music, and play rehearsal. Plus, I had a few other things I wanted to get accomplished, so watching a presidential debate that probably was only going to make me mad rather than change my opinion wasn’t at the top of my priorities.
Yet my mom and dad were watching it in the front room. And when screens AND politics get involved, I get sucked in. I got glued to the tv, even through the commercial breaks. For the parts I didn’t see, I had a friend who was watching it himself who messaged me with some of the craziest Trump quotes yet.
Between what the people close to me had to say, the general reaction on social media to the debate, and the considerable chunk I got to see, the thing was a shitshow.
Don’t get me wrong, Kamala Harris did really well from what I could tell, which is absolutely spectacular. But Trump. Good Lord, Trump…
I could consider this debate a great win for Democrats for showing how incompetent Trump has become, even on his standards, but nothing I saw last night made me feel good. It made me feel sick.
That man continuously lied for the entire thing, and the anchors weren’t fact checking him nearly enough. They shut off his mic, but then he’d start talking again, directly ignoring the anchors when they told him it was time to move on, and they’d turn his mic back on. Harris tried that once, and they didn’t let her continue. Yet when the fascist does it, I guess it’s okay, isn’t it?
Sorry, that’s probably petty, but I’ll explain my very personal reasoning to why that bugs me so bad here in a minute.
Trump lied and encouraged fear the entire time, using the whole thing to bash on Harris, Biden, and other Democrats while also spelling out how Doomsday will happen if the left wins.
He claimed Harris and Walz wanted to take everyone’s guns away. Harris shut him down, admitting that both she and Walz were gun owners themselves.
He claimed Harris was a terrible negotiator, so bad that her meeting with Vladimir Putin did nothing to prevent the conflict in Ukraine. Harris promptly told him and every person watching the debate that she had never met Putin in her life.
Lie after lie after lie. I should’ve been happier every time Kamala proved him wrong on stage. I should’ve seen those as victories. But rather, I was too sick from the lie itself to celebrate. No matter how foolish those lies are, people believe them. People are afraid of them. People I know. People I even care about.
Why?
If you’ve read anything from me recently, dear reader, you have probably noticed that question comes up time and time again (especially in my last post). Is this a morally gray situation? Or are we just bad people? Who’s right?
Why am I even asking who’s right?
Doubting the truth is a dangerous thing. It’s always good to question things. It gives you the ability to think freely for yourself. But if you doubt facts too much, you become more easily manipulated than you become freethinking.
But do I know the facts?
I’ve openly admitted that economics confuses me. Hell, politics themselves confuse me. So why then do I talk about politics so much?
That provoked an even deeper question…Do I talk about politics so much? Do I really?
Honestly, I don’t.
That sounds really stupid to long time readers. Politics have been about all I’ve been writing about since the start of this summer. Politics this, politics that, right?
If you have read those posts, I want you to actually think about what I wrote. Did I actually write about politics?
“Of course you did! You ranted about Trump the whole time!”
Allow me to ask a more specific question. How much did I actually talk about the policies of any candidates?
Spoiler Alert: Not that much.
Yes, I have written about policies in the past, but not nearly as much as other writers even on this platform. More knowledgeable writers, such as my mentor Robert Leonard with his Deep Midwest column or perhaps big names like Robert Reich. They know about politics. They know about policies. These people have studied economics, anthropology, and politics for far longer than I’ve been alive.
I took a general economics class last year that I had a hard time focusing on since it was right before lunch, and I have yet to take my government class (that comes later this year).
I haven’t been using a fancy degree or a high education to inspire my writing. Rather, I’ve been using a basic intuition I’ve had since I was five.
The bombshell, dear reader: I haven’t been writing about policies as much as I’ve been writing about morals.
Simple, basic, common sense morals.
I feel bad bashing Trump all the time without actually providing an argument for why Harris is not only better but an all around great candidate. But why do I struggle to write a good article on Harris? Because she and other Democrats are actually focused on policies. Bills, laws, practices, things I don’t fully understand. Things needed to run a government.
Trump is so easy for me to write about because the policies don’t even matter compared to the simple moral standings of the character. I don’t have to study law or economics to understand that Trump is TERRIBLE NEWS for this nation. A toddler can figure that out.
One point in the debate, an anchor asked Trump his stance on Obamacare. Trump said he had a plan, then went on this long winded rant that was barely coherent to basically dance around the actual meat of the question. Finally, the anchor reiterated herself. Trump’s answer put so much into perspective for me.
Q: Yes or no, do you have a plan?
T: I have concepts of a plan. I’m not president right now.
KAMALA WAS HOLDING BACK LAUGHTER AFTER HE SAID THAT.
“I have concepts of a plan.”
No, no you don’t.
You don’t have a plan.
You never did.
Or maybe you do. What was that over 900 page fascist–I MEAN, conservative gameplan written by that one thinktank? Oh yeah, Mein Kampf–my apologies, Mandate for Leadership. That whole Project 2025 thing. There’s some policies for you.
You know, something I’ve noticed about Democrat speeches vs Republican speeches recently. When Democrats take the stage, they promise to fix problems using specific acts, bills, or whatever policies they have thought up. Will they work? I don’t know. I just explained I don’t entirely understand how any of this works. But they provide a plan. They explain the plan. They namedrop projects and ideas they have and try to explain, even if briefly, how they would work.
Whenever a Trumplican takes the stage, they go up there and basically say, “So you know how a bunch of things suck right now? Yeah, the Democrats screwed everything up. It’s all their fault. Open borders? Inflation? Cancel culture? Yeah, Biden’s fault or something. Vote us in and we’ll fix it. Just trust me on this.”
Congratulations, now you never have to listen to another incoherent, bambling speech from the Annoying Orange in a toupee, couch rapist J.D. “Dolphin” Vance, or any of their mind numbing contemporaries again, as I’ve just summed up every single one of their speeches ever in that last paragraph.
See a difference? REPUBLICANS DON’T HAVE A PLAN.
Their plan is literally, “Some things suck right now, and that’s because of Democrats. Vote us in and things will get fixed because we’re not Democrats.”
THAT’S NOT A PLAN.
Republicans don’t make it hard for you to understand why voting for them is a bad idea. They clearly don’t have proper policies. The policies they do have should scare anyone away from that party. I don’t care if Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025. The fact that such a plan was even written out by conservatives is a complete disgrace to this country.
But if you’re not a policy person, we’ve got your back. You don’t even need to do policy research to understand that Trump is a terrible choice.
The 2016 race started really ramping up when I was eight. I didn’t understand anything about politics. I first learned there were even political parties during that election. I grew up thinking that presidents were the coolest people and that the United States was the greatest nation ever. So imagine my confusion when some guy named Donald Duck or something ran for president on the slogan, “Make America Great Again!”
Was America not great? But my mom the teacher and my dad the veteran said America was already great. And what’s this about Obama being born in a different country? I don’t know, man, Obama seems like a really cool dude. Hey…what do you mean by, “We must build a wall?” Why are we building a wall? What will it do? Mr. Donald Duck, you’re beginning to scare me…
Now I’ll admit, my parents’ opinions of Trump really shaped mine early on. They still do, I won’t lie. But I wasn’t just copying my parents. The things I watched that man do, the things I heard him say, the things I heard he supported, they shook whatever basic morals I had as a prepubescent child.
And a lot of this was because he acted not like a leader, but like a bully. I had experiences with bullies back then. And since then, some of those kids have only seemed to have become more disrespectful to everyone but themselves. They’ve started acting more and more like Mr. Trump himself.
My dad has preached for years that when you elect a president, you aren’t just electing a political leader. You are electing a moral example for your children and all other Americans. You are electing someone to represent our nation to other countries. You are electing someone who you want your children to look up to, respect, and even replicate some of their behaviors.
What about Trump screams any of that?
I won’t say waves of disrespect from students recently are Trump’s fault. I mean, kids are going to be kids. But I will say that the Trump situation is certainly not helping, and as a peer to many of these kids, they sure act a lot like him. They use some of the same tactics he uses to get out of things. They lie. They whine. They bicker. They talk over people. They are replicating the asshole culture that has been normalized by the MAGA movement.
So yeah, Trump, it’s personal with me.
From an early age, I could tell Trump was bad news. He seemed to me like a bully. He seemed to me like a poorly written supervillain even more.
No, seriously, think about it.
I know I just went on the rant about bullying, so I’m not proud of what I’m about to say, but dammit, Donald Trump is such a weird name (Donald, like the duck, and Trump, like a trump card? Really? That just IS a poorly thought out villain name!). He looks really funny between the hair and the orange skin, not to mention a bunch of his facial expressions and hand gestures are just weird. He’s really unpleasant to look at. He talks and sounds really…freaking stupid, honestly.
People claim he has charisma; he does not. He’s a draft-dodging billionaire who inherited everything he has. Rather than show any character development, he’s only deteriorated as a character. He’s become more annoying, more repetitive, more predictable. At the same time, he’s become less predictable, as if the author of his story is grasping at straws to keep the plotline going. He’s a liar, a cheater, and a rapist. He supposedly promotes a religion whose principles are all ones he fails to represent. And have I mentioned how annoying he is? Oh yeah, I did. Well, here it is again: He’s super freaking annoying.
And if that hasn’t convinced you yet, do I need to remind you of the list? (Yes, I will milk this thing dry.)
I have said it and will say it again. I will shout it from the mountain tops. I will put it on billboards. I will preach it until every American hears what I have to say.
Trump is the single worst thing for our country, and you don’t need to be a political expert to figure that out.
I certainly am not.
All you need is a moral compass.
We Did It
I was shocked today to see that I have reached 130 subscribers. That number is important to me because two weeks ago, after a year on this platform, I had 65. Within two weeks, my subscriber count doubled.
None of this takes into account all the new followers and just general viewers I’ve gained. This growth is wild to me.
So once again, thank you to all subscribers, followers, and viewers, be you new or old, for supporting me on any leg of this journey. I am so grateful for every single one of you. At last, this Wannabe Author is starting to think he might be able to drop the “Wannabe” part someday.
Good job young man! It does my heart good to read a young person’s perspective on our current state of affairs! Please keep up the good work! We need your voice!
Nicely done and congratulations on the new readership! Yours is an important voice. We need more young people like you sharing what they think about the world we live in.