The 2024 presidential election taught us how undeniably ignorant and self-absorbed the people of the United States of America are. A laughing stock of farm animals to the rest of the world.
I have struggled to express my thoughts on the election and the nation’s reactions to it. It could be put simply, that apparently neither truth nor compassion will outweigh falsehood and bigotry in this country. Although that fairly accurately sums up last Tuesday, it does not seem to encapsulate the heights of despair and despondence hanging over many people’s heads.
Blame can be thrown around as to why the election turned out the way it did, but I do hope people realize there was not one factor greater than another that led to these results. The hard-to-swallow truth is that several different aspects combined for this sum, not one above the others.
Despite this fact, what has shocked me more than any of those hypothetical causes previously mentioned, is the righteous attitudes of the third-party voters and those who decided to sit out the most consequential election for the U.S. in this century.
Similar to the 2016 election, but in a far more aggressive fashion, these groups of people seem to believe they are blameless in the results of this race.
Once again people threw away votes for grifter Jill Stein, and a couple of other randoms on some of the ballots no one knows, to make themselves feel better. Not that I could even begin to understand how voting for a candidate endorsed by former KKK leader David Duke could make anyone feel better about themselves.
I can offer similar sentiments to the non-voters, who will undoubtedly complain about the state of the country but can’t find the common sense to vote.
The reason these holier-than-thou attitudes are louder than ever before is that we continue to race toward a society that does not care about the people around us. The “me before we” plague has become one of the worst defining traits of Americans, constantly biting off our noses to spite our faces.
So let this election be a grim reminder that putting yourself on a moral high ground above the needs of a nation does not make you better than your neighbor. It makes you naive and complicit.
-Grace Van Cleave