US Primaries 2016
This the most entertaining and terrifying US election I remember. It’s fascinating from a Canadian POV. Bernie Sanders could be a middle-of-the-road member of two of our major parties (he’s pushing for single-payer health care, not nationalizing any industries – other than health care I guess!), and I feel like policy-wise he’s closest to what I want. But is he electable? Conventional wisdom would say the dems need a centrist, and a Clinton-Trump matchup seems to favour Clinton, whereas Trump vs Sanders scares me. But maybe the emerging Democratic majority has finally emerged, and it’s possible an avowed social democrat (democratic socialist?) can win…? Question mark? It still seems like that sentence needed a question mark.
On the republican side, it’s especially entertaining and terrifying. Part of me thinks Trump can’t call Mexicans rapists and win the election (if Republicans can’t win over Latinos, they can’t win Florida, which basically means they can’t win). So in some ways I want him to be the candidate. But having a crypto-fascist making it all the way to the general election is very scary. And most of his competitors are equally scary, especially “melting goblin” Ted Cruz (I did not invent that slur nor do I remember where I saw it – somewhere on Twitter – and I don’t like making fun of people’s looks, and that’s not why he’s scary, but it’s kinda funny – man this is an absurd parenthetical).
It just feels unpredictable, which is exciting. And terrifying.