Stormy weather ahead in American politics, mainstream public with vote

Last week I had intended publishing a column all about the storms brewing around America right now, from Hurricane Matthew which struck hard at a place I once called home, to the latest news coming out of the presidential campaigns along with the second debate.

That column was somehow lost amid the digital nightmare that comes from viruses getting onto an internal server, and thus the long thoughts I had about the stormy weather still on the horizon in this election and in our physical world.

Everyday the news seems to get worse for the national campaigns, whether it be another round of hacked e-mails released by Wikileaks from Hillary Clinton's campaign to accusers coming forward with claims of inappropriate behavoir forced upon them by Donald Trump, with one even making claims of being paid off.

I've been sitting and watching the drama unfold wondering whether this is going to be the state of things to come, or a passing squall that moves from horizon to horizon without causing much damage.

Right now, it seems there's no end in sight to what crazy news will come out of the presiden- tial race. It also seems, based on recent polling numbers in Georgia from three different sources show Trump with either a four point lead in two polls from Fox 5 and Landmark Communications, and a two point lead in an Altanta Journal Constitution poll.

Looking at a variety of national polls over the past week, the numbers are trending upward for Clinton. If the polls are anywhere near accurate to how the overall electorate feels come Nov. 8, then it clearly seems a majority of people will be sending the first female to the White House.

Yet we have a candidate who might decide that the election

is completely rigged, and will decide the day of how he feels about things. Oh sure, “I’ll submit to the results when I win” feels like a good comeback to a bad public gaff, but whose really listening anyhow?

If the polls are wrong, which could be true considering they only have the smallest fraction of the population actually responding to phone calls made to registered voters, then all bets are off on what could happen.

Regardless of who wins, I still believe no matter who is elected to be the next president that we’ll still be in the same boat America has been in for the past several years. Turmoil and strife over traditional values versus a changing world will clash. Politicians looking to keep their names in the news will continue to score points on issues we all care about, but they don’t seem to want to really fix.

The more important thing, the real continuity of our system, is that social security checks will still go out to seniors (who get a whopping $4 raise on their checks this year) and roads will continue to be patched with asphalt. Police will still arrest those suspected of being criminals, while terrorists remain on the loose with deadly malice in their minds.

None of these things will change just because Clinton or Trump is elected in November.

So the drug war, the War on Terror, a cold cyber war with Russia and so forth will just be yet one of the many things we will have to deal with in years ahead.

Anyone who believes otherwise needs to take a hard, long look at our country as a whole and not just rely on what they hear on cable news or talk radio. For years, the rhetoric has grown more spiteful on both sides of national politics, and we’re seeing the inevitable results of what ramping up anger and frustrations on both sides provides: candidates who the American public can’t really stomach.

We reap what we sow, and here in America we’re bringing in a bad crop of nonsense in our political system.

It’s also worth noting that if we should expect this trend of campaign insanity to continue for a long, long time. This past week I spent an hour or so reading up on an interesting side of the election coverage, which is how teachers are responding to Trump and Clinton and how they are being presented in the classroom.

I found one particular part of a story from the Washington Post on this topic worth delving into more. A government teacher named Michael Palermo from Yorktown High School in Arlington, Va., was quoted in the story as trying to retain respect among his students in the classroom, despite insults hurled between the candidates.

The story went on to say that on a post on Palermo’s blog, he would treat an individual who shouted “Build the Wall!” to a group of hispanic students as bullying, despite it being a campaign slogan popular at Trump rallies.

Now, I know we live in a different world than when I was a kid. People can’t just go around saying anything on their mind and not expect there to be consequences for what they’ve done. Trump’s latest campaign scandals involved in the variety of recordings of his comments over the past decades are proof positive that indeed, people do pay for their words one way or another.

A teacher essentially saying that he’d punish a student for chanting something he hears on TV, and might believe, to another group of students seems a bit much to me though.

When did our children lose the ability to learn for themselves how to handle social situations like that? Doesn’t true poltical empowerment come from people learning on their own what they can accomplish if faced with something they don’t agree with?

And what do high schoolers think of all of this?

I asked Tyler Williams, a Rockmart High School senior we hope will be helping us out with basketball coverage later this year and into 2017, to write down his thoughts on the past two debates.

He summed it all up in the first few lines of his essay:

“Sometimes, I wish it was just a big joke. Ironically that’s what most viewers uphold the debates for: comedic relief. Attention on serious topics on how our future president could help further this country is cast aside to be focused on the slap back’s,” Williams wrote.

He ended his thoughts with this: “From what I observed in the debate, can these candidates act presidential speaking to current world leaders if a topic becomes confrontational?”

“That is the focus and the concern. All the memes of the presidential candidates and the debates may give humor to the subject, but it all takes away from the main focus on what’s going on. Laugh all you want to, but remember that these are the same two people we are voting for in less than a month.”

I think he said it a lot better than I could have, and I feel bad for my new friend for having to learn a bitter lesson of the world so early. This election is about so much more than two personalities, yet we’re intently pulled into the who rather than the substantive what these candidates represent.

And what does this ultimately mean for future generations who will have to cleanup the messes we’re making today? That less progress is forthcoming, and more reactionary politics ahead.

I fear we might be at the beginning of a new era in American life, transitioning from the focus of technology and terrorism in the opening of the 21st century as our decades of prosperity hit a wall into a time we don’t yet fully comprehend or understand. It seems now that any past experience will become not a lesson for how we might move forward, but a heavy anchor weighing us down.

Let’s remember one thing: when we elect new leaders for our government, we do so with the knowledge that they are people too, and that they are just as prone to mistakes as any other human.

We set the bar high for our presidents because of the awesome responsibilities they command, and so we forget that they are not a Caesar held on high but instead more ordinary than we could imagine.

I don’t think we should excuse past behaviors from any of the candidates this campaign season. However since this election has been so tainted by the mudslinging back and forth between the two parties.

So who is worse? That’s truly for you to decide. This election is the lesser of two evils, and when presented with that option I think I’ll hold my nose and see what happens when I enter the voting booth.