The election campaign for the President of the United States of America was a perpetual stream of outrageous statements and bizarre results. Trump, the candidate who many people would have presumed was least likely to succeed at the start, has spent the past two years becoming more popular and powerful as he stepped closer to the White House. The campaign and debates were equally terrifying and hilarious. At times, as candidates denounced one another, they slipped into the realm of low budget reality TV; a genre perfectly moulded to suit Trump’s larger than life personality.
There was public outrage at Trump’s success, and this was fuelled by the fact that Hilary Clinton actually won the popular vote by an estimated 2.83 million. Many Americans feel let down by the college electorate system which ultimately chooses the President; an elector casts the vote for a whole area, and they are not obliged to vote in favour of the most popular candidate. It seems wholly unjust that in ‘the land of the free’ your vote might actually be worthless, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that an estimated 57% of the population didn’t vote.
However, it wasn’t the injustice of the college electorate that carried Trump to the final debates. Trump stood with a politically clean slate in contrast to the other candidates – particularly Clinton who has been in politics for over thirty years, and has held the title of First Lady, Senator of New York and Secretary of State. In recent years, distrust of politicians has grown because of multiple scandals. Therefore, is it really a surprise that this election has seen a vast percentage of the public turn their back on traditional nominees, and reach for an alternative like Trump and Bernie Sanders. We can only speculate about the result if Sanders had won the Democratic nomination. Nevertheless, it seems that the nation was ready for a big political transformation.
TRUMPAGEDDON.