America the b̶e̶a̶u̶t̶i̶f̶u̶l̶ bleak

On Aug. 27, 2015, The Eagle’s editorial board published an editorial that criticized the Federal Election Commission for allowing a 15-year-old boy to register Deez Nuts as an independent presidential candidate and Public Policy Polling for putting the name on the polls.
Once on the polls, the Nuts campaign polled between 7 and 9 percent in three states. The Eagle’s board brought to attention the fact that allowing this joke to take place was not only an insult to the countries that look up to the democracy in America as an example, but it also showed that young voters do not take politics seriously.
“In many ways, this incident speaks to the involvement of the younger generation in politics,” the editorial reads. “But it sends the message in a negative way. It shows that our generation thinks politics are a joke. We should be striving to find a fitting leader, but that hardly seems to be the case.”
Now, a little over a year later, we are seeing the glaring effects that early jokes and a blasé attitude toward the election have had. We have two front-runners that are equally flawed, and there is little hope to cling to in the third-party pickings.
The time is almost upon us when we will have to make a decision about who the next president is going to be, and most voters are at a fork in the road with two unappealing options. Neither of the options that voters have to choose from are ideal, and while this is commonly the case, the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is a much larger dilemma than the choices have been in previous elections.
There is a lesson to be learned from the predicament that the nation is currently in. It was funny when Deez Nuts was on the poll and actually gained a little momentum. It was funny when Twitter was overflowing with jokes about Donald Trump becoming president. And it was funny when people made jokes about Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty.
However, it is not funny that Americans were too busy making jokes about the worst candidates in the running to listen to what the real prospects had to say. And it is not funny that there is no good candidate for president left to choose from.
It may be too late to fix the damage that has been done this election season, but just as we did on Aug. 27, 2015, we strongly urge our readers to make mature decisions when it comes to something as significant as the presidential race.
We hope that the American people will take this matter more seriously in three years when the next race begins.