Message is clear: Americans want transparency

By Loribeth Reynolds

Transparency. The American people have never been more united over one issue as they are right now. But it doesn’t seem like it.

Examining the current presidential campaigns makes this clear.

However, it’s not very clear to the people who support the two candidates promoting this message.

Like they say, it’s hard to see the forest from inside the trees.

The Trump campaign and the Sanders campaign have fervent supporters saying the same thing about one issue.

You might be thinking that this writer has lost her mind to suggest that these two starkly contrasting campaigns, at the core, promote the same message, but they do.

It just doesn’t seem like the people will ever come together in this type of political climate.

With protests happening at virtually every Trump rally, it’s ironic to see that Bernie supporters make up the majority of the protest group.

What needs to be examined is the core that both sides support; get big business out of Washington.

One big appeal that Donald Trump’s campaign has among his Republican supporters is that he is not taking any corporate contributions.

This factor has created a fierce following because voters think he has no ulterior motives, and he “tells it like it is.”

Other Republican candidates can’t offer this to their followers.

It’s the same story with Bernie Sanders.

One of his biggest appeals for the Democratic Party is that there isn’t any corporate influence in his campaign. Hillary Clinton can’t offer that kind of transparency.

Again, this charac-teristic creates a passionate following among the Democratic base.

These Americans, from the Bernie Campaign and the Trump Campaign, are sending the message that they no longer want politicians who are puppets, dancing to the tune of corporate masters.

They want a govern-ment by, of, and for the people. However, the two groups that unite under the same message have never been so divided.

This is evidence that the Citizens United Ruling, the one in which money was ruled by the Supreme Court as free speech, is now wreaking havoc in this nation.

This legislation allows only the elite to have a say in this country, because of unlimited campaign funding.

The public needs to be informed of this piece of fairly new legislation, because the message voters are sending to Washington is clear.

They want corporate money out of politics.

It might not be until the Presidential election of 2020 that we see some unity under this ideal.

Washington may have received the message this election cycle, but the corporate fat cats are not breaking a sweat.

They will never take people seriously when they are fighting against each other, and not uniting.

While there are outright differences in these campaigns, there are also similarities.

We can’t let our similarities elude us by focusing on our differences.

We need unity if we want transparency. We need to come together to deliver this important message to Washington.

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