I really wish the candidates were being judged based on their own merit, their own accomplishments, and not because "the other candidate is bad" or "the other candidate is supposedly rigging the election." This is the most negative campaign. Both the candidates are being judged based on the negative qualities of the other. That's not how this should work. There's too much damned white noise in this election and it pisses me off.
And with all due respect
@The Albatross "Boys will be boys" seems like a really sickening defense in this situation. That's the same thing I was told when I was sexually assaulted, and another time later when I was physically abused. In fact, I think every abuse I got in my life has largely been dismissed with that same excuse: "Oh well, boys will be boys." We should really set the bar a bit higher for a presidential candidate. If you don't believe the allegations are true, that's one thing, but dismissing misogynism as "boys will be boys" is really harmful, imho.
I really just wish there was less anger in this campaign. Sure, I don't support Trump, but I have nothing against his supporters and I support their right to vote for him if they really think he will be the best leader.
On another note, as for all these accusations that the media is colluding with Clinton against Trump, I work for one of the biggest publications in the U.S. and our coverage of the election has been very heavy. But the only directive I ever got from the editors was to cover as much election news as possible -- about both candidates. We have reporters who are open about supporting Clinton, and they generally write negative pieces about Trump. But we also have reporters who support Trump, and they write openly negative articles about Clinton. Not because they are told to do so, but because they have their own minds and have drawn their own conclusions. The only thing I see happening is the editors allowing reporters to make their own personal opinions known, but there's no spin in favor of either candidate. If more journalists happen to be against Trump, that doesn't mean they were ordered to be against him or write negative things about him. It just means they don't like him.
I spent nearly a decade in Russia, where media collusion is VERY VERY real and it gets people killed. Where editors give out directives to write a certain story a certain way because "you know who" asked us to. Where stories get censored all the time because "you know who" said so. Where people's houses have been burned down because they dared to write critical stories about a certain "you know who." And oddly, any journalist there who dares to go against "you know who" is immediately villified, portrayed as part of a CIA conspiracy and a member of the fifth column, accused of writing critical coverage because they were paid to do so by mysterious forces. And when this happens, that journalist is more often than not brutally beaten in the street by thugs, or, in the worst case scenario, killed. So please spare me the bullshit about all journalists being in on some conspiracy against Trump. It wreaks of Kremlin propaganda, and by spreading these conspiracy theories, Trump is behaving like Putin and Kadyrov.
That said, I'm sure there are some journalists who write negative coverage about Trump for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't mean the entire system is rigged. You want to see collusion and media hit pieces? You want to see rigging? Go to Russia.
It's really f*cked up when any criticism of the guy is dismissed as part of a larger conspiracy. As if it's just impossible for someone to simply not support him. And it terrifies me, because I've seen how that type of thinking ends, and it doesn't end well. In fact I've seen them washing up the blood and brains from a victim of that type of thinking. In Moscow. We are not in Russia, people. We should not be stooping so goddamn low.
