I feel like this election has brought me some new insight. Our society has become completely focused on the one-liners, zingers, and memes. We hang tight on every word our favorite candidate says and belittle the other. This of course is what both sides want and we are falling for it.

Maybe I’m out there for thinking this, but 90% of what the two candidates believe are essentially the same. In order to make themselves stand apart they twist the fact, cherry-pick numbers, and toss out phrases for tomorrow’s Internet to gobble up.

Where they differ is on the role government should play in our lives. As with all great illusionists, they have us focused in on the wrong place and we are eating it up like gluttons at a Las Vegas dinner buffet. This is really disturbing to me. I fear we will have too many people voting for a candidate because of a meme they saw or a quote they read from one candidate about the other. We’ll have squandered our civic duty because of something the Internet said (so it must be true, AMIRITE?).

Let’s be realistic, both candidates lie to get what the want. Both candidates want you mired in the details so that you lose sight of the big picture. Both candidates want the other to be the butt of jokes the next morning. None of those things are going to be beneficial in the long run to our society. The question we should be asking ourselves is what role we want the government to play in our lives.

Do you want a larger federal government with more responsibility, or do you want a smaller federal government with greater local and state responsibility? It would be unreasonable for me to express both sides of this opinion as smarter people have laid out convincing arguments for both sides long ago. Read up and make your choice! Don’t fall for the spin these candidates are putting you through!