Politics - it is same everywhere

This is an election year in America, people here will vote to elect new or reelect the current president. The race is heating up, TV ads are growing, and soon debates will start. Recently, Republicans and Democrats both finished their conventions. I was listening to some of the speeches that were delivered at these conventions. I was surprised to hear the quality of these speeches, most of them were full of self-praise, the speakers were challenging the emotions of the audience, and they were full of artificial emotions. How will you feel when the wife of a billionaire says that she knows how it feels to make both ends meet, she claims to understand the struggle common men and women face in day-to-day life and height is that people clap for this and some of them even cry after hearing this? Some speakers make free reference to their religious beliefs. I personally believe that religion and politics should not be mixed together but unfortunately, almost in every country religion plays a dominant role in politics. They harped about their personal success stories, achievements, family members, and many other things that are not at all relevant to politics and the issues that this country is facing today. Even the candidate's wife spoke about them. I wonder why they have to speak about their husband at a political rally? Why is it required? What people expect to hear from them except unrestricted praise for their husbands and families. No doubt that some of the speeches were excellent but for me most of them were disappointing and sounded very staged and artificial.

Presidential debates are fun to watch and are a very important part of the presidential election in the USA. I wish something like this they start in India. I used to think that politics in the US is fought at a different level and with a different style than in India, but it's not true. It's all the same. In India where I live (Maharashtra) that state has produced many great orators and I have heard many of them, even many current political leaders can deliver much better (or at least similar) speeches than what we heard at these conventions. I wonder how American people tolerate all this nonsense. Maybe because they don't have many parties to choose from, sadly they have only two choices and that's why they cheer whatever they listen to as they know that this is all one can get. These conventions made one thing very clear if politics in India is dirty then here it's not that different.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)