This election cycle has spiraled out of control to the point where candidates and pundits are saying the “system is rigged”. The “system” they are talking about is our democracy and voting system.
Just to break things down for a moment, the most likely person to be president come 2017 is under a criminal investigation by the FBI. Her rival on the Democratic ticket is a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist”.
On the right, the front-runner is a boisterous billionaire who has had a problem making the majority of America even like him. Then there is Ted Cruz, who wants to build the wall and nuke the Middle East, and is staunchly opposed to gay marriage.
The differences and implications of this election are being multiplied and shared by every media outlet across the world. Unfortunately the majority of Americans don’t think about this election being broadcast around the world.
People around the globe are seeing the fights and protests at campaign events. They are seeing the names we are calling each other. The citizens of the world watch as we are trashing each other and the system that we claim is so great. The system that is supposed to be respected the world over.
What other country leaders and governments are seeing is something entirely different. They are seeing what looks like the United States exploding from the inside out, and they might be right. There is blood in the water and the sharks of the world are starting to circle.
We are projecting weakness; there is no doubt about it. Our country is divided and the rest of the world thinks we are focused on all the wrong things. The oxygen in the room is being sucked out by distraction issues like the LBGT movement and racism. Consequently, there is no air left to discuss our debt, growing financial bubble and some countries’ desires to bring us down.
While we are focused on the public bathrooms in North Carolina, Russian jets buzzed one of our destroyers in the Baltic sea. They didn’t just buzz the large military vessel once to mark territory, but they continued over 20 times.
A bold move that was aggressive in nature and wasn’t just some pilots fooling around. More than anything it was disrespectful and it makes Americans look weak.
Speaking of looking weak, remember when John Kerry apologized to the Iranians after they took our sailors hostages and had them on their knees? The Iranians used the images of our military on their knees to their advantage, blasting the propaganda to any media source that would distribute the embarrassing story to showcase our weakness.
North Korea is firing off missiles and acting erratically again, but this time they are really pushing the limits with their rockets and their recent claim of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead. Our inaction there is another sign of our weakness.
For seven years President Obama has had many failures that he would classify otherwise. The Iranian deal is one big one. He opened relationships with Cuba only to be mocked when he left. And don’t forget his former “reset with Russia”. Oh and Libya, the red line in Syria and pulling all of our troops out of Iraq.
He has made some mistakes, but he is about to be gone from the White House. In less than a year we will have a new president that will be facing a very tough situation with aggression growing around the world.
The question is, will we even make it to the elections before something happens? Can we stop projecting weakness to the world? I don’t know. What I do know is when Putin or Ali Khamenei watches a CNN report about college kids crying over “Trump 2016” written in chalk, then they might be thinking that now is time to take advantage of our weakness.
