One of two things needs to happen in my life. Either the general election date for the 2016 presidential race needs to move to, I dunno, maybe January, or I’m going to have to leave Facebook.
Given not only the political landscape of the presidential election but also recent tumultuous international events, I could go on about Facebook. Believe me, I could go on.
But this isn’t a piece about Facebook so much as it is about a political election process that seems to start just seconds after the final announcement of the new president from the previous election campaign. I understand that to a certain extent, politicians are campaigning year-round, but while I know in my mind that the four-year term of the president hasn’t changed, it’s just starting to feel like a lot longer.
Or maybe it just seems like we have to hear about a lot more about the campaigning much sooner than I remember from a few election cycles back, and I’m not just talking about the mainstream news.
So maybe this is an opinion about Facebook after all.
But maybe in that framework, it’s actually more about people than just a social network. Regardless of the cause, I’m not sure I can handle another year of this election.
And when you think about all the social media chatter, haven’t most of the people you see on Facebook already decided? Not all, mind you. But most? How about you? Even if you’re not obnoxiously vocal about it, do you really not know who you’re going to vote for given the front runners at this point?
Since I was curious, I checked out several polls from different sources offering up some of the more likely matchups, and there were only a few cases where they reported much more than 10 percent undecided respondents. And in some of those, I gotta wonder exactly who they’re polling. For example, in one NBC poll, nine percent responded “undecided” if the race came down to Trump or Sanders? Seriously? Who are these people?
But most of the polls reflected exactly what I would’ve guessed, which is that we’re at a point where less than five percent of people are undecided on most potential presidential election matchups. I guess in the close matches, those undecided voters could swing a result, but I also gotta wonder how many of those five percent or less who claim they are undecided might actually respond, “Don’t really care. Probably not going to vote anyway” if given that option.
So do we have to sit and watch the next year as these politicians court the five percenters? And perhaps more importantly, do you need to keep telling me your already-decided vote? I don’t necessarily need to keep hearing how great Bernie Sanders is or what a jackass Donald Trump is.
Although I will be curious to see how candidates react to global events like we have seen over the past two weeks, unless something drastic comes out, like that Hillary Clinton is actually a man or that Bernie Sanders has been hiding billions in corporate campaign donations, I’m probably voting for one of them when it comes time for the presidential election (and even the Hillary-man thing wouldn’t necessarily be a deal breaker).
But I’ll still show up for the final debates. Not because I might vote for … oh my God … Donald Trump or Ben Carson but more because I want a little advanced warning of what the country will look like if enough other people decide to.
In my early days at The Independent when I was just a features and opinion writer, I wrote about my need for self-imposed media blackouts. Since becoming the managing editor, that is no longer feasible, but perhaps a Facebook blackout may be in order.
Okay, so maybe this piece really was about Facebook.
Nah.
Facebook may have offered a platform that changed the face (see what I did there?) of social interactions; but people are still people, and they choose to act in certain ways. Nobody is forcing them to force their views down my throat, even if I potentially agree with many of them.
I said at the beginning of this that one of two things had to happen in my life, and if I wasn’t successful in my campaign to end daylight savings in Utah, I’m probably not going to have much luck getting the general presidential election date moved to January.
So it looks like Facebook might have to go. I did it once before, for three glorious months. I think that right about now, I could easily do it again. At least until around September.
Let me know if any of you change your vote between now and then.
