Be Informed or Don't Vote

    Why vote? You might say that it's a person's duty. But how do people decide whom to vote for? Would you want anyone elected with a flip of a coin? Of course not. And this is my point. I think a voter should be informed. I think it's a person's duty to acquire the information necessary to make an informed decision on whom to vote for. I also think that all uninformed voters should stay home and not vote. Many voters do not even know what candidates believe or stand for!
    So, how do people decide whom to vote for, anyway? Many people vote for a candidate because of how they look or sound. It could be racially motivated, such as voting for someone solely because they are black or white. Or gender-motivated, voting for someone because they happen to be female or male. Still others will vote for the best- looking or nicest-sounding candidate. Vain, vain, vain!
    Others vote a certain way because they were "born into it" or raised that way. You know... once a Republican, always a Republican, or once a Democrat, always a Democrat.  A friend of mine who happens to be black said that he was voting for a Democrat in a past election. I asked him if he knew what the candidate stood for. He didn't, but said that he would probably still vote for the Democrat. "Why?" I asked him. He told me that is what blacks do. "We just vote for Democrats," he continued. "Wow," I thought, "how narrow-minded." That is not how it was some years ago. Informed and prominent black men and women like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas were staunch Republicans.
    Like I said before, I think that voters should acquire the necessary information to make informed decisions on what candidates and their parties stand for. But that is easier said than done! What if the information is slanted, one-sided, or erroneous? Many young people fill their minds with leftist propaganda from their liberal professors. These young voters are informed, but with biased information. Most people get their information from the news media. That seems to be a fair way to be informed, doesn't it? Hardly! If the majority of the media want a certain candidate or party to win, they will do whatever they can to influence the election!
    Lester Holt, whom I respected as a professional, moderated the first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I was amazed at some of the "gotcha" questions aimed at Trump, with some being quite trivial. I was even more amazed that Holt never asked Clinton about serious matters concerning her vanishing emails, Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, Wikileaks, "pay for play" scandals, and billions of dollars that went missing when she was Secretary of State. The CNN/ABC debate wasn't much better.
    One typical night of news on ABC, NBC, and CBS, saw over 23 minutes of negative coverage about Trump, compared to only one minute concerning Clinton. The Washington Post and New York Times are just as biased or more. The NY Times had 11 negative articles about Trump on one random day. Guess how many on Clinton? Zero! The Washington Post has over a dozen investigative reporters working around the clock, devoting their time to try to find "dirt" on Trump. Other media sources such as the Chicago Tribune and Time magazine are the same or not much better. All of these media outlets are focusing on Trump's personal mistakes and not on Clinton's long list of scandals and corruption against the United States! It's alarming!
    Geraldo Rivera, who is not a big Trump fan, said that the mainstream media bias against Trump "is out of control" and "like nothing I've ever seen." Even MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said that the media has been biased and one-sided. He went on to say that "the coverage of the presidential candidates has been deplorable," referring not only to Trump and Clinton, but also Bernie Sanders. He said that, "the fix is in for Hillary Clinton."
    So what do we do?! Even the information that is fed to us cannot be trusted. If you want to know the truth, you'll have to dig deeper on your own. Stop listening to blatant media bias. Don't let the bully media tell you how to vote! Vote the issues and make an informed decision.