(Please Don’t) Make Our Country Apathetic Again

Going home for fall pause was filled with the usual things: hanging with the pets (my cat still hasn’t forgiven me for leaving my freshman year, thanks for asking), enjoying time with my parents, eating vegetables that actually crunch, and lazing around the house. Something I was not used to, however were the Hillary/Kaine signs lining the streets – a welcome surprise considering some of the less than encouraging things we’ve seen in Carlisle these past few months. The more I spoke to family and friends from home though, the more I realized that many people seem to hold the belief that Secretary Clinton is the savior to all the crises our nation is currently experiencing. As I’ve stated before, I do think that Secretary Clinton would make a very good president. She’s intelligent, experienced and she cares about America. Which is great. But she is a woman who came up through the ranks in a man’s world – and because of that she’s never had the luxury of truly going against the grain. She comes from the same system she skinned her knees crawling through and- to be clear- that’s not her fault. She did what she had to in the patriarchal system that was built to work against her and it’s not anyone’s place to judge her for that.

It is our place, however, to make sure we don’t let White America go back to sleep after Donald Trump woke them up with such an intense jolt. Thanks to Trump and his constituents, people can no longer ignore the racism and misogyny that is still deeply enrooted in the workings of our nation. Perhaps instead of saturating in the embarrassment our country has experienced throughout the past year or so, we should take this opportunity to change what must be changed and fix what must be fixed.

If Secretary Clinton is elected she will make history and her campaign is already a major step forward for women’s rights. That being said, Hillary Clinton cannot save the world – but she can help. As long as the American people continue to stay awake long enough to get mad at injustice and point to those responsible without reservation. Just because the election is over doesn’t mean that we should go back to where they were before this circus began, and it would be irresponsible for the privileged classes of our country to go back to their comfortable apathy.