Happy Election Day, Bruins!
Yes, America’s bloodiest boxing match will finally come to a close Tuesday. After clocking in more than 500 rounds – one per day – with some punches connecting harder than others, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are on their final stand. Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather are trembling in their seats knowing their match was little more than a chicken fight compared to this election cycle’s nightly entertainment.
But no matter how much America wants to hear the final bell ring, no matter how much we want the vitriol and invectives to end, the Republican Party’s ever-improbable presidential nominee wants to drag it out as long as possible. Donald Trump is the first presidential candidate in American history who has declined to state that he will unequivocally accept tonight’s election results.
We’ve seen a lot of whoppers this election cycle that can best be described with words our copy editors probably won’t let me use, but the fact that Trump has even left the door slightly cracked open to contesting the election results isn’t just irresponsible; it’s dangerously close to undermining the democratic foundation that made America “great” to being with.
But it’s really not that surprising. It’s the logical conclusion to the eight years of uncontrolled, unabashed rage Trump capitalized upon to seize the Republican nomination.
Politics may be akin to a boxing match, but even Mayweather and Pacquaio touched gloves before their fight. We as the American people can do better than this. It’s time to demand respect and restraint from our politicians and each other if our legendary democratic system is to survive.
Trump didn’t just happen. The actual slugfest has only lasted a year and a half, but it’s been set up by eight years of trash talk and polarization. I’ve already opined upon the staggering short-sightedness and irresponsibility demonstrated by the once-grand-old Republican Party.
Remember when the mere prospect of Sarah Palin being one heartbeat away from the Oval Office was enough to strike fear into the hearts of voters? Now we’ve given her more-aggressive clone a chance to win it outright. Rep. Joe Wilson’s famous “You lie!” quip from 2009 would look downright quaint next to today’s congressmen threatening Clinton with impeachment before she even takes office.
And before this becomes a conservative hit piece, let’s not forget Clinton dismissed half of Trump’s supporters as irredeemable and deplorable just a few months ago. Or that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters stoked rumors of a rigged Democratic primary election.
We’ve even seen it right here at UCLA. David Horowitz repeatedly puts up posters with phrases like “(Students for Justice in Palestine): Jews are Nazis.” The Bruin Republicans host events called “Feminism is Cancer” and “An Illegal Immigrant Killed my Child” under the absurd notion that they would start a meaningful debate. It’s just another shouting match.
To Trump’s credit, he’s exposed the fact that the current system doesn’t work for a lot of Americans. But becoming even more extreme and polarized won’t help, and it won’t get us better presidential candidates. It’ll only make the situation worse. We need to work with, not against each other.
We need to redefine the way we think of “winning,” because, as the nearly two-thirds of voters who think the country’s on the wrong track can tell you, there aren’t very many winners in this system – no matter the outcome of the election. We need to reward dealmakers, not deal breakers, if we want our government to function.
But that requires something much more fundamental: trust. And that’s an almost nonexistent commodity in today’s political environment. It’s why Clinton’s continued email controversy and her botched responses to it have nearly tanked an otherwise formidable campaign. It’s also why someone like Trump stands a legitimate chance of strong-arming his way into the White House by virtue of nothing but his “outsider appeal.”
The change can start here at UCLA. Instead of investing our energies into shouting matches, we can take some steps toward actual meaningful dialogue with more debate-style events and positive activism for concrete goals. We’re not in need of any more inflammatory events on campus, but we’re more than lacking in opportunities for students to actually reconcile their differences in political thought.
As voters, this also means we need to nominate and elect people we can trust to reach across the aisle and get things done, not just grandstand for political points. It’s abundantly clear that we need to elect those who can collaborate and agree with their political opponents, or we’ll risk running an encore of the past four years in Congress.
So when that final bell rings, let’s cross our fingers and hope that the loser – whoever he is – manages to graciously concede defeat and continue an almost 250-year tradition of peaceful power transfer. And let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.
We can get our reality television drama elsewhere – Mayweather and Pacquiao are in talks for a rematch, after all.