“The past eight months or so have undoubtedly been dominated by one figure: Donald J. Trump.

Television can’t get enough of him, social media can’t get enough of him, and even The Voyager can’t get enough of him.

I said from day one that this guy wasn’t going anywhere, yet, tons of people think he’s still a joke.

He knew from day one, too. Trump has planned this campaign out and manipulated the media as well as any candidate in American history.

Every piece of criticism and hate thrown his way does nothing but strengthen his support.

If you wanted to bring him down, I’d recommend not giving him the attention, because it seems like this man is basically infallible when under the public eye.

The numbers will show that Trump is, and has been, leading among the Republican candidates in most states, and he’s racking up the delegates.

In other words, he will be the Republican presidential nominee.

It’s funny to me because, if everyone hates him, Republicans and Democrats alike, how is he winning so much?

Something that my peers have a hard time understanding sometimes is that there’s a world outside of Homewood-Flossmoor High School.

There’s hundreds of millions of Americans other than us, and they like Donald Trump.

His chances of becoming our next president are high. Higher than Hillary’s? Well, we’ll have to see in November who America dislikes the least and ends up voting for.

Unfortunately, Bernie Sanders is out. He’s been out for a while now. In fact, he’s been out even before it started.

I hate to be cynical, but the Democrats chose Hillary as their 2016 nominee years ago.

I voted for Bernie, you voted for Bernie, and many others voted for Bernie in the primaries last Tuesday.

None of it will mean anything in the long-run, thanks to the Democratic establishment, but that doesn’t mean we should stop supporting who we want to be our next president.

I still have just enough faith in democracy to think that our actions at the voting booth actually make a difference.

In this case, Bernie gave us false hope. I personally think he ran 10 years too early, although at his age, I’m not sure where he’ll be in 10 years.

Either way, the idea of a candidate as progressive as Bernard just won’t work right now.

Give it some time, and in three elections from now, another Bernie-type candidate will be gaining enough support to win the general elections.

We are not progressive enough for this quite yet.

We like to think we live in a country that has a modern, ethnically diverse way of thinking, but we don’t.

There’s still so many Americans who are old-fashioned and are fighting against the mainstream media to keep traditional values in this country.

Trump appeals to these people, and if the people want what the people want, then we can’t get mad. It’s democracy.

Remember, this is the same country that voted for George W. Bush twice, as much as we like to criticize him.

So I urge everyone to do their part as American citizens and vote. If you hate Trump, vote against him. If you like him, vote for him.

We have to realize soon that this guy is the real deal.

One more thing: stop saying that you’re going to move to Canada if he gets elected because you know you don’t even have a way to get there.