If you are turning 18 before November, congratulations! It’s your first election this year!
The political climate this year is truly an anomaly as we are seeing our very first presidential candidate who is on trial for several federal crimes. This could very well be our first president who is a convicted criminal; which begs the question of how we hold a criminal president accountable.
But besides that genuine and looming threat to democracy, as we know it, the Primary election is full of other important circumstances that we future voters should be aware of.
Joe Biden, the incumbent candidate, is leading the primaries in his advantage position as the returning president. This was to be expected not only due to the large debate surrounding his age but also his unpopularity with the Republican party. Biden’s campaigns have a lot to do with preventing Trump from being in office. Biden is also the only realistic Democratic candidate as he was given little to no competition during the primaries.
Donald Trump is currently winning the Republican vote 1,253 delegates (as of 03/14). His campaign is currently dominating in primary elections with his recent win in Michigan. Trump has the majority of the Republican vote despite his recent lawsuit for a total of whopping total of $454,000,000. With a Republican majority, the odds are statistically in Trump’s favor.
Nikki Haley was Trump’s only competitor for the Republican vote however after her large and semi unexpected loss in the Michigan Primary election, her campaign is now at risk of becoming unsuccessful. With her campaign being focused on the take down of Trump,she is not likely to make it past the Primaries and will not be a candidate during the November election. Haley has dropped out of the 2024 election as of March 6th.
A historic and, frankly, extremely controversial election being the first we are ever voting is absolutely not ideal. The options for who will be the leader of the country are between a convicted criminal/sex offender or a pro-genocide elderly man. With that information in mind, it’s safe to say there is no “correct” moral choice.
Honestly, throughout the process of researching for this article I found myself quite hopeless for the future of democracy as a whole. However, that does not mean voting is irrelevant as the lack of votes is quite literally the reason why we are in this situation in the first place! It’s difficult to get an entire generation interested in politics, especially when it’s hard to prove how much politics actually affects them. This conjoined with the fact that this is the 2020 election part two, there’s even higher tension surrounding this race.
That being said however, people (like myself) who don’t necessarily agree with either side are forced to swallow their pride and use their best judgment to pick the “lesser” of two evils. My only advice is to not judge yourself too harshly about suppressing your morals and try to imagine how you want to see politics in the grand scheme of things.