You shouldn’t care who’s president. At least, not as much as you do. This may seem like a shock to you, based on what you’ve been told your entire life, especially in the past four years. But it’s true. Everyone acts like it’s a huge deal who the president is, but really, it doesn’t matter much.

There are many reasons why you shouldn’t care. The biggest reason is that the president doesn’t have nearly as much power as people think. They can’t do whatever they want without consequence. Their job is simply to pass or veto laws passed by congress and to conduct diplomacy with other nations. They cannot pass laws whenever they want. The majority of the president’s decisions are decided by Congress. They can strike down laws passed by the president. The real power of the president has been created by the media and by the citizens of the USA.

The media have painted the president as a massively powerful figure that can control every aspect of a citizen’s life. This is completely untrue. But their insistence on this myth has misled many Americans to believe it. Therefore, they become incredibly interested in every little thing the president does. When everyone pays attention to a single person, they gain influence. Every decision they make influences the decisions of others in the country. The president’s opinions become the public’s opinions. Or the president’s decisions prompt anger at the government and the country as a whole for allowing such a person to become president. 

This situation has become evident in the past four years. I don’t think any other president has been hated so much as Donald Trump. But it has seemed that the more attention people give him, the more he is allowed to say whatever he wants. He hasn’t been deterred. His nonstop controversial tweets and accusations against him have never waivered. So my suggestion is simple: don’t pay him too much attention. Who cares if he says something controversial? It doesn’t matter as long as he’s protecting the fundamentals of the American constitution. And let’s be honest, he’s a doofus. He says dumb things. It’s what he does. And yet people act like everything he says is some kind of new, shocking thing he’s done.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t vote. You should absolutely do your research on who you agree with most, and vote who you think is most adequate for the job. But no matter who is president next year, we should treat him with respect as the president. You can oppose his decisions, you can disagree with his morals. But unless he makes decisions which threaten the very fabric of the great country we live on, he shouldn’t be such a big deal.