Now that Ted Cruz has officially dropped out of the presidential race, the pattern of what people want from their president is becoming more defined than ever before—as it should as we narrow down the candidates who we no longer believe will support our ideals well. We have been left with three candidates representing the unique ideals of the public about how they want America to be. Each candidate is a model of a particular ideal held by their respective supporters. These three models can essentially be boiled down to; the stability model, the progression model, and the regression model.
The stability model can be seen in Hillary Clinton. Those who vote for Clinton like mostly, that she is, and has been a politician. As a Senator of New York, the Secretary of State, and the First Lady while Bill Clinton was president, Clinton is clearly experienced with, and has spent a good amount of her life, around politics. What this means, is that she understands how America is. The key word here is “is”; Clinton fully understands how America is as of present, and according to her stances on issues that supporters also admire along with her political background, she intends to keep America essentially the same. She doesn’t generally plan to make any great strides akin to rebellion like the other candidates, which is appealing to her supporters.
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Clinton supports equal rights for example, but hasn’t broken any significant ground with equality; she hasn’t fought for it as much as she has supported it. Her other views on gun control, the criminal justice system, etc. run along a similar line. She tends to support the regulations and changes that are already in place, and supports them, but never asserts a necessity for massive change that hasn’t already somewhat taken place without her. Like Clinton and her stances, her supporters don’t seem to want to “rocks the boat”, and radically change America, in fact, they want America to slow down a little bit; they want some stability.
Unlike Clinton, the other two candidates represent the ideals of those who want extreme change, but in opposite directions. Bernie Sanders and his direction for change, is the progression model. Sanders’ supporters value that he wants to take America in a radical direction; leaving old American values in the past, and springing forward into something totally different. What is most notable about Sanders’ supporters is that they are fed up with the way America currently is, and want to move forward into something completely new.
They want nothing to do with the current state of America, and the redundancy and “old” ways of politics that they see present America trapped in. They want to do away with the traditional American Democracy all together; a certainly radical concept. Sanders’ supporters idealize and romanticize the concept of “revolution”; a largescale change and abandonment of stability for the sake and hope of better to stem from it. They believe that Sanders is the one who will lead them to victory.
Unlike Clinton supporters—and many people—Sanders supporters don’t fear taking the risk of change, and propelling themselves into an unknown future. Revolution, progression, and flinging oneself into the future, are the main values of Sanders’ supporters, and the reason many people don’t like Sanders; they don’t see the need for progression, and some see the need for the exact opposite, that is, regression.
Radical too, Donald Trump represents extreme change in the opposite direction of Sanders. Donald Trump is the regression model. Those who like Trump want to “make America Great again”, as his slogan puts simply. What this shows, is that Trump’s supporters want to fling themselves not into the unknown of the future, but into the comfort and familiarity of the past. They want to go back to the “old” American values; they want to return to that time when American values centered on rules, traditions, pride in patriotism, and hard work as a means to success, and bring it all back again.
Because of this, Trump’s supporters want to do away with the restrictions of political correctness, lean away from a focus on every individual’s innate quality of life, and revitalize the economy so it resembles times when it was better. What Trump’s supporters feel, is that they have lost what once made America great; “simpler” times, a booming economy, and the safety and comfort of tradition. They, like Sanders’ supporters, are fed up with the way America currently is, and want to fling themselves into the past and grow backwards into the familiarity of what once was.
As angry as we can get at people for wanting to vote for certain candidates, though, we have to remember that despite how we want to get there, we all have a common goal; we want to be happy. As cliché as it sounds, that is the commonality of humanity regardless of our preference in candidates. From these three models we can see that each supporter has an ideal; an image of how America can make them happy. Though some people want to stay the same, some want to throw themselves head on into the future, and some want to fight to get back what they feel they’ve lost, regardless, each person wants to live a happier and better life. This campaign has brought out a significant amount of hate; hate that comes from a lack of understanding as to why our fellow Americans want to vote for _____.
There is backlash, judgment, and a lot of forgetfulness about our one common goal as Americans. Instead of fighting, agitating and yelling at others in support of what we believe to be our individual goal, I encourage us all to remember the three models, and how behind the support of respective candidates, everyone truly has the same goal. Our aim as voters and Americans should be at uniting to make that goal a reality, and encouraging others as well as ourselves to listen, acknowledge and understand the unique paths we could potentially take to reach that shared goal.
