The three Republican-Democrat Presidential debates and the one Vice Presidential debate were covered incessantly. Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, Comedy Central (yes, for the sake of the argument, I'm including it), CBS, MSNBC, whatever - we heard every possible, stupid angle on every possible response.
Factcheck.org pointed out that both sides told lies, or at least untruths. Each news source praised the side they lean toward while lambasting the other. If their preferred candidate did worse, there were other factors at fault - the moderator, the altitude, the questions asked.
Neither of these candidates represent me, and I often find myself surprised at people who allow either candidate to represent them either.
This isn't to say either candidate is bad (although that is my opinion, I respect that others may disagree). It's to say that people who are self-professed liberals will blindly follow President Obama, and people who are self-professed conservatives will blindly follow Mitt Romney. A voter will decide that the other candidate is so hateful and so awful that she forgives faults in the candidate she decides is the lesser of two evils, even if these faults are beliefs or practices that go against everything she stand for.
Obama supporters will focus on Big Bird and ignore the drone attacks. Romney supporters will focus on a confused definition of socialism (seriously, shouldn't you have to define socialism before you use it on national television?) and ignore the seriousness of rape.
During his recap of the third debate, Jon Stewart praised Obama's performance and pointed that Romney would do everything Obama is doing concerning foreign policy. At no point did he mention that Obama's foreign policy often did, in fact, mirror Bush's - a foreign policy he used to tear to shreds. But Stewart is liberal and therefore supports Obama, because the only imagined alternative is too loathsome to imagine.
How, in an age of information overload, in an age where we can barely keep track of how many choices to share ideas we have, do we still only allow ourselves the option of either Democrat or Republican? And how, in the age of the internet, do most of our news sources ignore everything that isn't a part of the two major parties?
Here's where some asshole brings up money and corporations, like I'm some naive child that needs a pat on the head. But sometimes doing the right thing IS the right political move. Barack Obama finally endorsed same-sex marriage, for example. So for us to further democracy (and therefore continue to ensure a thriving middle-class, considering a democracy is the form of government most well-suited to the middle class), we need to make sure we have options, to make sure we can vote for someone we actually believe in.
I know the candidate I'm endorsing has ideas that may be impractical, but she is 100% opposed to drone attacks while also being 100% opposed to transvaginal ultrasounds. She's against drilling for oil (which apparently both Romney and Obama support), and she has a different idea of how to approach education.
I'm not trying to convince you to vote for my candidate. I'm trying to say that there are other options. In an era where we have countless ways to communicate and share ideas, it's mind-boggling that, in the political sphere, we limit ourselves to two schools of thought.
It won't always be this way. It can't. The internet has transformed the way we socialize (Facebook, online dating, Instagram), transformed the way we receive our news (Newsweek is almost out of print), and transformed the way we watch movies (Netflix) and read books (Kindle). There hasn't been an information revolution this drastic since Gutenberg invented the printing press. It is only a matter of time that, with more access to more information than ever before, we widen our options.
The internet will save us all, if we let it. I guess I have to be patient, as difficult as that is. Long live democracy. But only if we, as a society, embrace the change the internet has made possible.
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