My op-ed about the 2016 election

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I am truly shocked at last night's results. While I did not vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, this came as the most complete of surprises for me.

This election, while its overall theme was "outsider vs. establishment", fully exposed the polarized nature of U.S. politics. We've become insufferable pricks about it, and about our parties, candidates, and elected officials. We've reduced ourselves to assigning labels to those who disagree with us, and then adding the suffix "-tard" (which is, no question, among the worst suffixes in the world) to said labels. I made it my duty to never have a political meme or image of a candidate or party as a profile pic, because I don't want to be defined that way.

That said, I want to send shout-outs to the following political figures:

1. Hillary Clinton: While she didn't ultimately become the first female president, she did become the first presidential nominee for a major political party, and the third overall, after Victoria Woodhull and Jill Stein. That's still pretty good.

2. Barbara Mikulski: She ends her long, illustrious career as the longest-serving woman in Congress, 10 years in the House, and 30 in the Senate.

3. Evan McMullin: While little-known in much of the country, he nearly became the first non-Republican and non-Democrat since 1980 to gain at least one electoral vote, by giving the Big 2 a run for their money in Utah.

4. John Kasich: What can I say. He fought Trump tooth and nail in the primaries, and long after suspending his own campaign. While far from perfect himself, I hope to see his face next to the definition of "integrity" in a future dictionary.

5. Rob Portman, Mark Kirk, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins: The four GOP senators, so far, to support same-sex marriage, defying a good many in their own party, which is often seen as theocratic. While Kirk ultimately lost his re-election bid last night, he, like Kasich, focused not on party loyalty but on equality. (Portman and Murkowski were re-elected, and Collins was not up for re-election)

6. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren: While the five people immediately listed above bucked the trend against one of the biggest obstacles in the GOP, Sanders and Warren similarly bucked the trend for the Dems, in their fight against crony capitalism.

buckle your seatbelts, gentleman- it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

TimTex, I honestly think Elizabeth Warren should have agreed to stand for the Dem nomination. She may have pulled it off and be on the way to the White House today.

A certain person on this site has ventured to express an opinion that Trump is on the spectrum. I don't think we 'd like to be associated with such an egoistical, insensitive and rude "role model"! It would hardly be flattering to Aspie interests to be associated with him in the same boat!

Bernie Sanders is unfortunately too old to make any further bids for office.

Evan McMullin seems to be rather good looking and quite moderate in his views.

I'm not American by the way, but find the topic interesting!

Outsider vs establishment does explain the presidential race a bit. However people somehow ignored the fact that house and senate is STILL the same old idiots. It's unfortunate how politicans are so stubborn and refuse to compromise much- which is why Obama can't get stuff done as president. So people will spout "Obama is a horrible president" when in reality its the house and senate people that are horrible!

No matter who is president- house and senate still can block most of their things from happening. Trump's campaign was tons of lies and plenty of promises that likely wont happen (one big example- a wall that Mexico will pay for).

Trump has bankrupt businesses and been a conman all of his life. He pulled the ultimate con on the American people. Its a bit sickening and unfortunate.

I strongly feel Trump is just trying to refill his pockets at the expense of the people. The coward couldn't release his taxes because of the "audit" even though many people pointed out the facts that he could release a ton of information on his taxes!

4 years you will go by and I bet things wont be better under Trump+republican rule. Let's not forget Trump's VP is extremely anti-LGBT and is a supporter of that conversion therapy crap! So if Trump gets impeached somehow, Pence isnt any better. But its not like Clinton would've done much either because the house+senate would be republicans blocking nearly anything she tries to do! Will Trump supporters admit they were wrong? I doubt it.

Also last but not least- I think an investigation should be under way. Trump threw around the word "rigged" a ton, so I honestly feel its only fair for them to investigate the voting more.. because its likely he would've!

I guess you're right... after all we even have killers who are on the spectrum, unfortunately...

At least he didn't win Colorado - you must be glad about that. But I think you're better off having voted for the "other woman" rather than Hillary. One should vote on principle for whom you believe best represents your views.

What?????

I thought it was supposed to be the lesser of two evils. No?

I sent a message to Lindsey Graham on twitter.

Lindsey as you know doubt know Trump has won the Election. It is up to people like you in the Senate to oppose his inhumane policies of banning muslim immigration and killing families of terrorists. I am from New Zealand but we are counting on people like you to do their job well in the legislature.