November 8, 2016

November 8, 2016 was my third presidential election in the United States of America.    In my 14 years in the country, the USA has become divisive as ever every second.  We hear from both the Democratic and Republican party about unifying the country, love, peace and prosperity for everyone.

Both candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump promised to make the country rich again, both will balance the books and pay our national debts.  Both said they will go high when the other go low, yet both can not stop shouting insults at each other since the beginning of this campaign cycle.

Facebook was loaded with feeds full of petitions to let Hillary step down or Donald to step down depending on whose dirty laundry was being aired.  So sad that the "Best" country in the world have two candidates with the most majority out of the four yet nobody is really proud of supporting either one.

The divide is surely brought about by having only two major parties.  They know one of them will win so campaign was more on rhetorics targeting character instead of platforms.

If the winner really do what he/she said, we will soon earn more interests in our bank money and other investments.  Those with loans will pay less interest.  Students will get better education then start their adulthood without or just some student loans.  Businesses will thrive and multiply instead of closing.  Policemen will go to work without being harassed or assaulted.  We will all be more safe. Homelessness will start declining, etc.  All of us want the same thing.  Yet, we are so divided.

Yellow Hammer News posted an article Trump or Clinton will be President:  Here's how to decide who to vote for.  It is a good read enumerating what decisions the next president will do that will directly influence every citizen.

A few friends and family members would rather vote for a third party candidate than any of these two but with no federal funding available for a third party, their voices were not heard.  The little that we hear about the third and fourth candidate were not even able to get more than 5 percent of the voters.  Both these were not able to really appeal to much of the citizens.  There was once when all four candidates were discussed.  One of them (Johnson) can't answer the journalists when asked about Aleppo in an interview, one (Klein) was facing a possible arrest for vandalism, and of course there was never a stop in the FBI investigations about the email scandals, her trustworthiness and her health for Hillary and taxes, women and wealth scandal for Donald.

A few days after the election:

The President-elect announced was Donald Trump.  Media and polls had not predicted this result.  The map shows most states going red.  Yet the popular vote states that Hillary gets more votes than Trump.

The electoral college our founding fathers formed is the base for calling the winner in the presidential election.  The candidate who gets at least 270 electoral votes wins the presidency.  If we don't have this system, then we can all just wait for the results from states with the most population like California and Florida.

Facebook - days after the election day is filled with hatred from people on both sides.  Now we have democrats rallying because they can't accept the result.  They are afraid that Trump presidency will destroy their families and their kids will be raised immorally.  All I can say is, how the kids grow up to be is really the kids' decision.  We as parents are responsible for putting down the foundation of how we think we want them to grow up being.  Whoever the president is, they are not the ones who tell our kids to respect and love each other.  It is our example as parents and our immediate surrounding that shows them how to act and behave toward each other.

Some people think that because Trump's public image during the campaign includes a video of him not being respectful to women, others think of him as racist, bigot, etc. that they can now go around town harassing people with darker skin or just different from the typical American they wanted.

Hopefully once President-elect Trump is sworn in, the unifying talks will start working and that people on both sides will start acting civil and respectful toward each other so we can all move on peacefully.

I believe truly that whatever circumstances and situations we are in is because of our own individual decisions.  Of course health care, education, safety, taxes, unemployment and others can get better and we can all retire rich and peacefully earlier if the president help make that possible.  Or we will see increasing number of homeless people, veterans suffering somewhere, taxes and healthcare nobody can afford and businesses closing everywhere if leadership moves us to the wrong direction.

I'd like to think that Americans are mostly patriotic and once all these dust settles, we can all move on and work for a better life for ourselves, our communities and our children's lives.