2016 so far…

Now 2016 has been a great year if you’re either a betting person or a politics student.

This year has seen the unpredicted happen. The saying “expect the unexpected” really rings true to 2016 so far. Leicester City won the Premier League back in May (which seems like a lifetime away right now) with odds of them winning were 5000/1, now only if I were the betting person! Their win was a pleasant unexpected event but the events that followed, in my opinion, were not so pleasant.

Next up was Brexit, which I was against. I truly believe that our best interests, as the ‘future generation’, is being part of the European Union. But all the polls pre- 23rd June suggested that the country would vote to remain and the few early results to come in that night also suggested that the remain vote would be larger than the exit vote. But again, the unexpected happened. Though this time it wasn’t as pleasant.

The most shocking unexpected event, if you haven’t been living under a rock, is the fact that Donald Trump was voted to become the 45th president of the United States of America. Through out the whole election campaign I was certain that the people of America would not vote in such a racist, sexist and outright unfit candidate and on many occasions I voiced this certainty. In one of my seminars, near the beginning of the year, I remember talking about how certain I was that Trump wouldn’t make it to the White House and my seminar tutor/lecturer, who is American, was just as certain. Yet, I when I woke up on the 9th November Trump had caused the biggest political upset in a long long time. I thought Brexit was bad, but this was worse. Though I’m not American and he won’t be my president come January 2017 but once he is inaugurated, he will become one of the most powerful individuals on earth. It’s that though that scares me every time. A lot of what America does effects us here in the UK and if Trump does a lot of what he said he would, then I can only predict more hostility and uprisings. Not the most pleasant prediction but then again, expect the unexpected I guess.