INDEPENDENCE

Today is the day for voting for President in the United States. It seems different this year.

Political campaigns are often negative with more attention at discrediting the opponent, but this year the criticisms are worse than ever and the race to the bottom or vote for the lesser unfavorable mindset has many more people disgusted with the election than I recall with prior 4-year cycles of polarizing dialog.

I have not been promoting one political direction over another – that somehow is not “politically correct” – and there is a risk of disassociation from people who are strongly on the “other side” – for many it seems like the arguments for one side are accepted and the other side is all wrong and manipulative.  Typically either side has many surrogates and delegates all speaking to the same talking points and sharing rehearsed lines to help sway opinion.

It is easy to KNOCK the process – the part we see is largely not what we are looking for but what others think will get in our heads and sway our vote, the part we see is the stories of corruption and false promises and not what individuals vying to be our leaders are doing to make our lives better – but as bad as it seems the alternative with restrictions on information sharing and public engagement could be a lot worse. It is unfortunate that what is compelling for media attention (tweets, recorded soundbites, interesting visuals) may be less compelling for decision-making,

On this last morning of campaigning I heard a call using the INDEPENDENCE Day theme, calling for voters to make today our INDEPENDENCE Day and become independent from the party politics and corruption that have seemed to be our way of governing for as long as I can remember.   The non-incumbent party usually makes this case so in itself it is not clear whether it is real or rhetoric, but coming from someone who is not a political insider and not fully beholden to a political party it sounds like it could be different this time around.