America Reacts to the 2016 Election Results

Upon hearing the news that Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States, half of the country is reacting like this:



The other half:





(Here's the video I used to make the first GIF in this post. Worth your time to watch the full video. Enjoy!)

I Love Donald Trump! (Though not for reasons you might expect)

Changing The World Starts With You
Jay Shetty explains why changing the world begins with us.
Posted by The Huffington Post on Friday, February 26, 2016

I never thought I would say this, but I actually learned to love Donald Trump tonight. And not because I love how crazy he is or because I found something he said extremely funny. The love I discovered for him tonight is Christlike love.

The video above sums up many of my of the thoughts I have had over the past few years really well. And it addresses one of the questions I believe the most difficult to answer: How do we change the world? The answer is: by starting with ourselves!

The greatest debate in America right now is easily the presidential race, and the majority of the comments I hear/read on the topic are about how terrible Donald Trump is as an individual, businessman, and/or potential president. Before I say anything else, let me be clear that in no way am I intending to express support for Donald Trump as president by this post. However, as much as I may disagree with some (OK, a lot) of the things he says, Donald Trump is not a perfect human being (and neither are any of the other remaining candidates for that matter).

Have we all forgotten what the ONLY PERFECT INDIVIDUAL to walk this earth taught us? In Matthew 7:1-5 (as well as 3 Nephi 14:1-5), the Savior of mankind taught us that we are all hypocrites when we judge others. Believe it or not, the Son of God sacrificed Himself for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders just as much as He did for you. As soon as I realized the undeniable truthfulness of this fact, I felt the love of Christ for each of these individuals in a powerful way which certainly surprised me! 

So next time you feel the urge to bash on one of them, please remember this post and "first cast out the beam out of thine own eye" (Matthew 7:3; see also 3 Nephi 14:3). You may be surprised what happens...

President Trump?

As I sat in the exam room at my doctor's office on Thursday afternoon, I looked over at the magazines that were available and the cover of an issue of TIME magazine there caught my eye. It read, "How Trump Won: Now he just needs the votes". At first I was simply interested in seeing what the article might be about, but as I began reading I quickly became intrigued with the author's message.

Early on in the article, the word disintermediation is used to explain why Trump has been so successful in the polls. The basic concept of disintermediation is cutting out the middleman. For example, someone publishing an ebook by themselves rather than going through a publishing company. The article explores the disintermediation of the political race for the upcoming presidential election this November. The middleman in this scenario is the mainstream media (or "lamestream" media as suggested in the article).

Social media has connected the world in such a way that Trump and his fans can, in effect, communicate directly. Although the media has been predicting for months that Trump's campaign is going to lose steam at some point, that does not seem to be the case. In my opinion, the mainstream media is wasting their breath. I would be willing to bet that Trump has more Twitter followers and Facebook friends than the number of people who watch the news and hear what the "lamestream" media has to say.

I acknowledge that the article spent very little time discussing the view of people who think Trump is a joke as a candidate for president. The article is pretty one-sided in discussing why Trump is having success in the race and how he may have a good shot at becoming the Republican nominee. One point the article brought up is how Trump is known for saying just about whatever he wants. In a world that seems to have become dominated by "political correctness" and fear of voicing an opinion to the contrary, what would it be like to have someone as President that is so well-known for being politically incorrect? Maybe Trump has what it takes to shake things up and actually make a big difference. Only time will tell.

UPDATE (11/10/16): I guess the question mark in the title of this post is now obsolete...