If you’re anything like me and are not into politics, then you feel my pain when you’re being bombarded with political ads. Especially when all they do is bash the other candidate for something they said, or taking a quote and placing it into a different context. To be frank, it’s just annoying.

When the campaigning began, I was excited because I’m always for the “out with the old, in with the new” mentality. However, with this election, I feel as if both candidates are terrible and are not confident with their policies that they quickly resorted to bashing each other in the debates, calling each other liars and crooks, or in the political ads that we see so frequently now. Enough is enough. If you’re going to campaign for any office, then you need to be sure of your policies and not say a different idea when the same question is asked in a different debate.

There are some clear patterns with these political ads as well. Much of them just focus on the bad side of the opposing candidate. At the same time, we see these ads contain cues for our emotion. Usually, we see these ads use color or keywords to trigger an emotion. For example, gray is commonly used to portray depression or sadness when they have an ad bashing the other candidate. Very rarely do I see an ad utilizing the promotion for a policy. This is disheartening at the very least.

It seems as if every time I turn on the TV, there is another political ad on bashing someone else. Quite frankly, this is depressing. It does not sway me in any way to vote for the other. All it does is make me not want to vote for the candidate that is approving the message that is conveyed in the ad. Personally, I feel that if you’re willing to stoop so low as to bash the opposing candidate and not promote your policies and what you stand for, then I am not confident that you are fit to be president.

In the end, politics is politics. Lying, cheating, payoffs, manipulation, and slander are just a few things that are well known about politics. Not to insult anyone who is interesting in campaigning for an office, but it is just part of politics, unfortunately. George Washington warned us so specifically in his Farewell Address about the dangers of political parties. His warnings should have made us cautious about political parties because we see that partisanship would lead to political conflicts between parties, divide our nation, and give rise to tyranny which we see most prominent in this election.

Even with these warnings from our founders, we still went down the path of danger, and we are paying the ultimate price. No matter who wins this election, we’re going to see a path of danger and ultimately the next WWIII. With our troops funneling into Europe and occupying Russia’s border, we can see the dangers already of the division of America. Your choice when voting for a president in this election is not who is the best fit, but how fast do you want to get to WWIII?

Unfortunately, this is what the political ads are telling us. No matter who gets elected, I just hope that they will lead us unto victory.