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WEEKLY | 11.03.16

12WEEKLY | 11.03.16Cover story

By Stacy J. WilliS

Well, now what? Assuming we’ll have a winner soon and not a civil war, and that we’ll resume to plodding along under a new administration for four years, what will we do with our time, our disgust, our sarcasm, our conde-scension, our vitriol? At whom will we aim our disdain,

our filthy memes, our self-righteous pontificating disguised as “debate,” and our trolling disguised as “conversation”? How will we reel ourselves back from thinking it’s okay to say “He’s a f*cking lunatic” over the fine china (gyna?) or “She’s a stupid bitch” in front of children? How will we clamber back to some semblance of civility, to a time where we wouldn’t have dreamed that our presidential discourse led us to such base, ignorant, blockheaded name-calling? (See what I did there? It’s like I can’t stop. The negativity has devoured me. )

Let me tell you, there were times—dark times—during this election cycle when I whispered weird things to myself like, “I miss W,” and “Mitt Romney had a nice head of hair.” There were moments when I woke myself up at night repeating, “Deplorables, deplorables, deplorables …” There was even the crappy moment when I stood in line to vote—something that has always given me a sense of pride as an American, that feeling that although we differ in opinion, we are civil and united and believe in our system of Democracy—and exchanged cold glares with the retired couple whose Mercedes sported an opposition bumper sticker. My fellow Ameri-cans looked at my gray hoodie, which had a tiny Hurley emblem on the chest, an “H,” and the woman snapped, “You can’t wear that Hillary junk in here.” I didn’t want to explain. I wanted to brawl. I was sure I could lay them both out with a spinning roundhouse kick—a skill I absolutely do not have—but I wanted to vote more. So I stayed focused. There was nothing uniting about it, no warm fuzzy America the Beautiful buzz, no apple pie, no baseball.

Who have we become? I don’t want to be this person, nor be among these people. I want the love back. Or at least the decency. I’ll be okay if I never again feel drawn, as if possessed by some demon spawn of utter hopelessness, to join a 652-comment thread to add this insightful commentary: “Moron!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Perhaps we need a national time out, a long moment, like two to eight years—the time it takes Senate Republicans to consider a Supreme Court nominee—to cleanse our psyches. I have a list of terms I need to purge from my head (see below), most notably, “orange anus” and “Killary.” Perhaps we all need a media fast, a solid 20 minutes without glancing at Facebook or Twitter. Perhaps we need a cable-news cleanse.

Or maybe we just need to take a deep breath, come to terms with Our Year of the Tantrum, wrap it up, set it on the history shelf and try much harder to civil, smart and reasonable.

It will be so great. Believe me.

Taking the initiative A primer on the big questions (but study your informative sample ballots!)Background check LoophoLeWould close the so-called “loophole” on federal background checks for gun purchas-es. If it passes, background checks already required at other licensed dealers would be required for gun purchases at gun shows and unlicensed online sites and between private parties. If it fails, gun purchases at those sites might continue to be conducted without federal background checks.

recreationaL Marijuana Would make recreational cannabis’ use and sale legal for those over 21 at a date to be decided in the next legislative ses-sion. Passage of this measure would also enact a 15 percent state tax on wholesale marijuana sales, allow for the establish-ment of regulated cultivation facilities, distributors and retail outlets, and require distributor licensing.

open Market energyIf passed, this would amend the Nevada Constitution to allow Nevadans to have a competitive retail energy market in which to shop for power. The measure would require the legislature to pass laws by July 1, 2023 prohibiting a power monopoly, pre-venting unfair practices and reducing costs to customers by allowing competition.

MedicaL equipMent tax reLiefIf passed, this initiative would amend the Nevada Constitution to remove consumer sales taxes from medical equipment like wheelchairs and oxygen tanks, as long as they’re prescribed by a licensed health-care provider.

fueL tax Drivers in Clark County already pay inflation-based fuel taxes, and if passed, this measure would continue that practice. The fuel tax revenue is used exclusively for roadwork and improving transportation safety. The measure seeks to adjust fuel tax-es with inflation up to an averaged annual rate or 7.8 percent. The Regional Transpor-tation Committee estimates that it would amount to a roughly 2.8-cent-per-gallon in-crease in gas costs in 2018. If passed, it will allow the fuel indexing practice to continue through 2026. –Stacy J. Willis

How can we get past this brutal election cycle?

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

A Taco Bowls A Bernie Bros A Scott Baio A Billy Bush A Basket of Deplorables A Bad Hombres A A WikiLeaks A I Have the Best Words AWalking Pneumonia A Sniffling A Yuge A

Election

2016AAAAAA

From the pitch to politicsU.S. Congressional hopeful Ruben Kihuen has a different goal in mind these days

By tovin lapan

On the morning of the presidential debate at UNLV, Ruben Kihuen climbed onto the back of a truck parked in

front of the Trump International Hotel and told the crowd he was living the “American Dream.” Addressing the “Wall of Taco Trucks” rally—organized by the Culinary Union Local 226, one of his longtime supporters—Kihuen told his story of coming to the United States with his family from Mexico when he was 8 years old and making the most of the opportunity. The crowd roared with applause.

Kihuen has risen from Nevada State Assemblyman to State Senator, and is now running for the U.S. House of Rep-resentatives in Nevada’s fourth district. At 36, Kihuen is a promising, rising player on the Democratic roster. But a life in office was not his first choice. When Kihuen was attending Rancho High School he dreamed of receiving cheers on the soccer pitch, not the campaign trail.

Kihuen grew up in Guadalajara. His father, Armando, traveled to Southern California for seasonal labor, and in 1986 he applied for Ronald Reagan’s immigration amnesty program, eventu-ally establishing permanent residency. Kihuen, his mother Blanca and his siblings followed in 1988. Armando,

formerly a teacher in Mexico, moved the family to Las Vegas in 1993 and got his U.S. credentials to teach middle school science. Blanca has worked in house-keeping for MGM for the last 23 years.

Kihuen, meanwhile, became a star striker for the Rancho High soccer team, setting records for most goals and assists in his senior season, when he was named Nevada Player of the Year.

“Ruben was the man,” says Herculez Gomez, a Las Vegas High School alum who went on to play for the Mexican professional league, Major League Soc-cer and the U.S. National Team. “Trust me, he had the toolset to make it … You just never know what life is going to throw at you.”

In 2000, at the age of 20, Kihuen scored a tryout with Chivas, the well-respected Mexican league team from his hometown. During final prepara-tions, Kihuen was playing in a Las Ve-gas adult league when, with 10 minutes to go, he fell awkwardly. He knew im-mediately that something was wrong: a broken foot that would require two pins inserted for a year.

“The doctor came back and said,

‘I have good news and bad news. The good news is, you’ll be able play soccer again; the bad news is, you’ll never be able to play professionally,’” Kihuen recalls. “I was depressed.”

During his senior year at Rancho, Kihuen had volunteered for Sen. Harry Reid, and enjoyed the community work. So when his soccer dream dissolved, he turned back to school and focused on politics. Eventually, Kihuen received his degree in education from UNLV and became a recruiter and advisor at CSN. Meanwhile, he kept working on

campaigns. He helped organize the first Latino outreach program in Virginia in 2001, supporting the successful guber-natorial run of Mark Warner. He joined Harry Reid’s 2004 reelection team, and when the Senator won, he brought Kihuen on as a regional representative.

It was the start of an ongoing mentor-ship. “For someone at that level to start mentoring someone in their 20s who is barely starting out in politics, I think it speaks volumes about him,” Kihuen says. “He was building the team, the infrastructure, that would go on to con-tinue his legacy in Washington, D.C.”

In 2006 Kihuen, still a relative unknown, decided to run for state as-sembly, and defied the prognosticators by winning. It was the toughest race he faced until this year. After a competitive primary, he’s now in a close contest with Republican incumbent Cresent Hardy.

“Now, when you’re in elected office, you look back and say: ‘Yeah, I’ve made it, I’ve achieved the American Dream,’” Kihuen says. “But there are still many families who haven’t … I see it as a re-sponsibility to not only give back to the country that’s given me so much, but also to help the next person up.”

“I want to not

only give back to

the country that’s

given me so much,

but also help the

next person up.”

Education

The résumés of Nevada’s two

major-party candidates for the

U.S. Senate, Democrat Catherine

Cortez Masto and Republican

Joe Heck, have gotten somewhat

lost in the noise surrounding the

presidential race. Here’s a quick

primer on who stands for what,

drawn from their campaign web-

sites and public statements.

Cortez Masto would vote to increase education funding and oppose “efforts by some in Washington to dismantle the Department of Education.”

Cortez Masto favors stronger back-ground checks: “My husband [and I] are both gun owners. But imagine the lunacy of letting those listed on the terrorist no-fly list to be able to buy guns like the rest of us.”

Cortez Masto would work to lower taxes for the middle class, fight against trade deals that send jobs overseas and invest in transportation projects like the Inter-state 11 corridor.

Cortez Masto supports the DREAM act and would enact reforms that “secures our borders and allows millions of un-documented immigrants … to earn a path to citizenship.”

Cortez Masto intends to crack down on human trafficking, a job she began as Nevada’s Attorney General.

Heck wants to fund Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs and simplify the federal financial aid application process.

Heck sees gun violence as a mental health issue: “By actually addressing the root causes of gun violence, we will be able to cast partisan differences aside and enact policies that actually prevent these senseless tragedies,” he says.

Heck wants to reduce government regu-lations on businesses, provide tax breaks to small business owners and boost international travel to Las Vegas.

Heck wants to strengthen the border with Mexico (and with Canada), expand em-ployment eligibility verification and cre-ate a “guest worker program that allows for both high-skill and low-skill labor.”

While in the House of Representatives, Heck opposed the bulk collection of pri-vate phone records under the PATRIOT Act.

Guns

Jobs

Immigration

Miscellaneous

Here’s what our two senate candidates intend to do if voted into office

By Geoff carter

What theMastoHeck?

A Nasty WomanA Zodiac Killer A Build That Wall A Aleppo Moment A Benghazi A Sad A A Lyin’ Ted A Little Marco A Rigged A Grab ’em by the Pussy A Bigly A Wrong A

14WEEKLY | 11.03.16Cover story Cover story

15WEEKLY | 11.03.16

HECKCORTEZ MASTO

Ruben Kihuen, center, poses with Hillary Clinton. (Steve Marcus/Staff)

Election2016AAAAAA

16WEEKLY | 11.03.16Cover story

Confirmation bias has wreaked havoc on our social media accounts. Will we undo it?

By Geoff carterIt’s called “myside bias,” or more com-

monly, “confirmation bias.” Shahram Heshmat, a professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, defined it suc-cinctly in Psychology Today: “When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true … Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it.”

Truthfully, I can’t get through a presi-dential election cycle without confirmation bias. The more polarized and angry our country becomes, the more I need to be around those who hold my deeply felt principles—and to ignore those who don’t. If I didn’t, especially in this fiasco of an election year, my brain might have self-im-molated somewhere around the primaries.

Confirmation bias is harmful. It deprives you of important and relevant facts, and can easily ossify into ugly prejudices. I want this election to be the last time I practice it. And what that probably means is this: In roughly three years’ time, I’ll delete my so-cial media accounts and keep them deleted until the next election cycle is done. It takes too much out of me. It gets in the way of the things I should be saying and doing.

I don’t know how many people I’ve fil-tered or outright blocked on Facebook and Twitter since the campaigns began. I was tired of fighting, so I just … disappeared them. There are no restrictions, legal or moral, to prevent me from doing that; all social media is strictly opt-in. (And it doesn’t prevent others from blocking me, either.) Nevertheless, as election sickness wears off, guilt is setting in—and I’m won-dering how many of these disagreeables I’ll restore to my feed.

I should probably listen to Heshmat and unblock everyone. “Look for instances to prove that you are wrong,” he wrote, citing Abraham Lincoln’s proclivity for employ-ing political rivals. “This is perhaps a true definition of self-confidence: the ability to look at the world without the need to look for instances that pleases your ego.”

It’s sound advice, and I want to live by it. But how much sh*t Lincoln would have gotten done in a day if he’d had a Twitter account? Probably not much.

Favorite pop-culture moments inspired by the presidential election By Stacy J. WilliS

BALDWIN AS TRUMP

Alec Baldwin’s spot-on SNL impersonation gave us great lines like “Wrong.” … “Wrong” …

“Wrong.” Kate McKinnon’s Clinton was stellar as well, crying, “If you

don’t elect me, I will continue to run for president until the

day I die.” youtube.com/watch?v=-nQGBZQrtT0

THE NEW YORKER’S ANDY BOROWITZ

He’s been a lifesaver, with a steady stream of satirical writing. Headlines include “Trump Blasts Media for Reporting Things He Says,”

“Many in Nation Tired of Explaining Things to Idiots,” “Trump Warns Hillary May

Rig Election by Getting More Votes” and “Hillary Releases 20,000 Spam E-Mails

From Old Navy,” with even sharper stories underneath. newyorker.com/

humor/borowitz-report

BETWEEN THE FERNSZach Galifianakis interviewed Hillary Clinton

for the Funny or Die talk show. ZG to HC:

• “Are you excited to be the first girl president?”

• “As Secretary, how many words-per-minute could you type?”

• “What happens if you become pregnant? Are we going to be stuck with Tim Kaine for nine months?

How does this work?” (Clinton’s deadpan reply: “I could send you some pamphlets that might help

you understand how this works.”)

• “When you see how well it works for Donald Trump, do you ever think to yourself, ‘Oh, maybe I should be more racist?” youtube.

com/watch?v=xrkPe-9rM1Q

Thanks forthe laughs

Delete my accountElection2016AAAAAA