The American Presidential Election

American Politics

2016 is election year in America. A battle between the most popular Democrat and Republican will commence at lates this June. But right now the country, and the rest of the world alike, is focused on the primaries, which are held right now. The primary elections will decide what republican and democratic candidate will fight for the presidency. For the democratic side there are now only two candidates; Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, while at the Republican, after over a duzen drop-outs, only John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump remain. I decided to take the quiz to figure out what candidate I´m most on board with. I found out that according to at iSideWith.com the quiz I side with Bernie Sanders, we agreed on 95% of the questions. Lets now take a look at an important issue heading into this election: Gay marriage.

The issue of gay marriage has very split opinions between democrats and republicans. A whopping 94% of democrats agree gay marriage should be legalized. On the other hand, the Republican side is much more split, actually siding the other way; 69% of republicans doesn`t think gay marriage should be legalized. A rising thought that comes to mind writing about this subject is Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican candidates. Donald Trump is a right-wing radical with very strong views on immigration, amongst other things. Many people are surprised by his popularity, would he be popular in Europe too? I don`t think so.

Donald Trump could not have been a candidate in Europe. I would not vote for him, because of his racism and bad statements. He does not seem like a good guy as he encourages violence and says that the United States needs to be great again. Barack Obama answered Trump with saying that the US is great now. I still think he can survive the election in the United States although he has a lot of radical views.

Here are some tweets from the running candidates:

“Ohio is losing jobs to Mexico, now losing Ford (and many others). Kasich is weak on illegal immigration. We need strong borders now!” – Donald J. Trump on Twitter

“Donald Trump is fanning the flames of violence. That isn’t leadership. It’s dangerous.  #DemTownHall” – Hillary Clinton on Twitter

“If men were giving birth to babies, there would not be a lot of discussion regarding the right to choose.” – Bernie Sanders on Twitter

“Tax cuts. Regs freeze. Stopping Illegal Immigration. Balanced budget plan. That’s just the 1st 100 days. #BuckleUp” – John Kasich on Twitter

I chose these tweets because I think they describe the different candidates and what they fight for. I can also notice the fight between the candidants in some tweets.

Imagery for the parties

The Democrats use a donkey as an image while the republicans use an elephant. The democrats got their symbol from Andrew Jackson because of his popular stance: “Let the people rule”. The Republicans got their symbol in 1874 because of a cartoon that depicted the then new party as an elephant. The symbols are important as they are subliminally connected to their parties. When an american see the elephant symbol they think of the Republican party, and the same goes for the donkey and the Democratic party.

Delegates

I found how many delegates the candidates needed on a webpage called theguardian.com. Yesterday there was rimaries in 5 states in America. A whole 367 Democratic delegates and 792 Republican delegates were on the table. Which is 17% of the total  democratic delegates and 15% of the total republican delegates, which is many delegates! Each candidate needs a majority of the votes by the end of the primaries to be elected as the president candidate for their party. As of now Trump is noticably ahead of Cruz and Kasich, while Hillary Clinton is barely ahead of Bernie Sanders on the democratic side. But how does the world all react to whats happening? Time to find out!

Newspapers’ coverages

I read two newspapers’ coverages of the US on the election. I chose the newspapers’ coverages because they had interesting titles. I think the coverages portrayed the candidates, Trump and Sanders, in a bad way. One of the titles were: The rise of Donald Trump and the fall of America written by the newspaper Pakistan Today (Islamabad). The article tells that Hillary Clinton has more good points than Trump has. The other title were Bernie Sanders´s health plan raises questions by The Washington Post. In this article, Hillary Clinton criticizes Bernie Sanders health care plan. Sanders says “If Europe can do it, so can we”.

My thoughts

If I was an American citizen I would vote for Bernie Sanders because he shares a lot of my thoughts; We both think Climate change is an urgent matter, and that America should invest more in the wind-mill business. He is also pro gay marriage and wants to make college debt and tuition-free, which I strongly agree with. Furthermore Sanders also has a lot of experience in american politics. Because of all the reasons above I would vote for Bernie Sanders and I think he would make an excellent president.

Sources:

The rise of Donald Trump and the fall of America by Pakistan Today (Islamabad) (15. Mars 2016)

Bernie Sanders´s health plan raises questions by The Washington Post (15. Mars 2016)

http://www.pressreader.com (16. Mars 2016)

https://www.isidewith.com (16. Mars 2016)

https://www.isidewith.com/elections/2016-presidential-quiz (16. Mars 2016)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/2016-presidential-candidates.html? action=click&contentCollection=Election%202016®ion=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&moduleDetail=undefined&pgtype=Multimedia&_r=0 (16. Mars 2016)

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/datablog/2016/mar/15/trump-clinton-ohio-florida-primaries-us-election-2016?CMP=share_btn_tw (16. Mars 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuTe_sAI-UQ (16. Mars 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuTe_sAI-UQ (16. Mars 2016)