Christopher Cervantes
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Politics has never been the easiest subject to understand. With the various ebbs and flows of legislative intrigue and controversy, many people are quick to jump on the bandwagon of condemning and judging those who are deemed unworthy of support. Recently, one of the biggest names to be condemned by the public as well as her colleagues is Hillary Clinton and her now infamous email debacle. Needless to say, this negative attention has affected her most recent run for president.
Recently, though, the amount of critical focus has shifted from candidate Clinton to Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy. On Sept. 29, McCarthy made a comment that came off sounding as if the Benghazi committee was formed for the sole purpose of destroying Clinton’s reputation and chances of winning votes. That comment has grown and flourished to the point that two definitive sides have been formed, one in which Clinton is an innocent and the other in which she is blatantly guilty. As the hearing regarding Benghazi continues, the amount of division merely increases with every passing report.
Frankly, the fickleness of the situation proves to be positively astounding.
Not two weeks ago, Clinton’s campaign was locked in place, waiting for the drop of the figurative guillotine. As of today, she has regained ground with the likes of CNN reporting her lead over other Democratic major candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Instead of criticisms, many news outlets, including The Daily Iowan, have described her as professional and presidential. And we are eating it up.
Over the weekend, I spent some time debating politics with my conservative cousin Kristy. She badmouthed Clinton, and I responded in full by going after Ben Carson and the comments he made regarding Muslim politicians. At that moment, I was struck by an epiphany:
We don’t want to make decisions.
One of the biggest critiques regarding Clinton was the email brouhaha. Many news outlets, both conservative and liberal, have cited the incident as indication of untruthfulness. Because people said she couldn’t be trusted, support transferred to other candidates. This led to shrinkage of her approval rate.
Throughout this time, information and publications regarding Clinton’s stances and policies seemed minimal because of the amount of overshadowing done by the coverage of that famous email. And we ate it up. We enjoyed the drama born straight from the latest prime-time hit because the information told us that we shouldn’t trust Clinton. We didn’t make a logical decision based on politics but instead what was easier on us.
Too often, people will pick a newsworthy tidbit on which to judge someone rather than less exciting factual matters. It is irresponsible for us, the consuming public, to ignore the other information, based solely on the levels of controversial elation. By doing this, a disservice is being performed. In a strange way, we ruin politics by being so flippant and easily influenced, all because it is easier to listen to the majority rule. It may not be the easiest way to do our own research, but it is the best way.