Trump Bans Preshredded Cheese: Makes America Grate Again

     This election and it's outcome have been an incredibly divisive topic in this nation, primarily because of the incredible lack of charisma demonstrated by either of the two parties political candidates. Indeed, approximately 2/3rds of voters, when polled, had indicated that they would prefer any candidate besides Hillary or Trump. However, due to the well established notion that voting third party was a "waste of your vote," no other option was available to the American people. A friend commented on the election results and made the assertion that while not every individual who voted for Trump was a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot who wanted to see all liberal progress over the past 8 years undone, but the majority of them must have had racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted tendencies to have voted for him. I disagree with his assessment; from my perspective much of the presidential selection came down to establishment vs. anti-establishment. To many Americans, Hillary represented everything that was wrong with the government; when the phrase 'Clinton scandal" is used, the first question asked is "which one?" With notable examples including Bill's sexual indiscretions while in office and Hillary's email fad, the Clinton name is associated with corruption and exploitation of the system. Trump, however, did not have this stigma attached to his campaign. His primary selling point was that he was an outsider to this system and was running not because he was a career politician but because he felt America had issues that needed to be addressed. Regardless of the validity of his views or his labeling of minority groups as the source of these problems, at the very least Trump aspired to something, aspired to 'Make America Great Again," whereas Clinton seemed to only be interested in furthering her career. The only candidate who could have stood a reasonable chance of defeating Trump was Bernie Sanders, another outsider who proposed a radical cleanup of the existing system and was also deemed too extreme by his own party. I would argue that the scandal of Clinton and the DNC conspiring to cheat Sanders out of the nomination was the crippling blow to her campaign, as it demonstrated her disregard for the interests of the democratic constituents. This sentiment, this deep- seated resentment of the corrupt established authority is also clearly demonstrated in the 'Waldo Moment" episode of Black Mirror. Waldo ran for a position on parliament and came in second on the popular vote by running on a similar platform as Trump's. The previously established party had their stronghold rocked by scandal just as the democratic party had, and Waldo carried no position other than the message that the existing corruption was unacceptable. The primary distinction between Waldo's campaign and Trump's is that Trump had substance to his position. While his views are sexist and racist, Trump made concrete, albeit poorly-defined, assertions as to what needed to be fixed. Waldo contrarily had no position, no argument beyond accusations of corruption.