Politics for Dummies: The 2016 Race so Far

With everything going on in the presidential race, you may realize how truly difficult it is to follow. But, fear not! This article explains all you need to know about the current political landscape.

1. Of the two main political parties, six candidates remain – Democrats: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Republicans: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich.
2. There are also a few different third party candidates, but they’re not important.
3. Sanders and Trump are the only candidates who don’t rely on Super PAC’s. So, all of their campaign finance comes from individual donations, or their own pockets.
4. Because of their “outsider” status, Sanders and Trump are both seen as being alternatives to the establishment.
5. Trump is the clear frontrunner of the Republican Party.
6. While Chris Christie was once a Republican candidate who said Trump was “unfit for office,” he has since dropped out of the race and has started supporting Trump.
7. While Clinton has had more victories in primaries so far, she and Sanders are both about equal when ranked nationally.
8. Most of Clinton’s victories so far are from southern states; Bernie has won more of the northern and swing states. Many of the next primaries will take place in northern states.
9. According to Quinnipiac Polls, in potential matchups against republican candidates, Sanders would win against each, Clinton would only win against Trump.
10. Sanders has 32 years of experience as an elected official as mayor of Burlington and Senator of Vermont. Clinton has spent eight years as Secretary of State.
11. Several primaries or caucuses have happened so far, and there’s many to come; so far, Trump and Clinton have both won more for their respective sides.
12. Though they are both democrats, Sanders and Clinton have some very different views.
    • Sanders is a Democratic-Socialist:
      1. This means he is in favor of more social programs, higher taxes for the top one-percent, raising minimum wage, universal health care, reducing student debt, expanding social security, making state college’s tuition free, and many others.
      2. Sanders has supported equal rights causes since his youth, and even marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. He has also supported equal rights for LGBT people since the early 1980’s.
      3. Sanders bases his views on government models from Nordic countries, and from past U.S. presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.
      4. Hitler was not a Democratic Socialist! I hear this constantly, and it’s not even slightly true, Nazism was a fascist philosophy.

13. One main criticism people have of Clinton is her inconsistency – prior to 2013, she was against LGBT rights and was supportive of the war in Iraq.
14. Trump has also been inconsistent: first, he was a democrat, then a republican, a democrat again, and now is settled on being a republican.
15. Trump has very rightwing views on immigration:
    1. He thinks a wall should be built along the U.S.-Mexico Border, and that the Mexican government should pay for it.
    2. He thinks all Muslims should be banned from entering the country.
    3. He thinks Syrian refugees should be banned from entering the country.
16. Cruz, the runner-up in the Republican Party, has nearly identical views to Trump, though Trump is to the left (supports planned parenthood funding to an extent and supports same-sex marriage rights) of Cruz on some social issues. Cruz is known for his evangelical religious views, and support from evangelical voters.

…And that’s everything in a nutshell. The presidential race is still tight, and it’s still too early to tell who our next president will be, but hopefully this clears things up for those of us who are politically illiterate.

Read More about the differences between Republicans and Democrats: http://www.enkivillage.com/differences-between-democrats-and-republicans.html

Read More about the race: https://bunow.com/category/news-and-politics/

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