“He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems … they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

I consider myself a fairly humorous person. I tell jokes sometimes. I enjoy laughter. I’ve seen “Trainwreck.”

And some other things exist that I find completely hilarious. Much like the sham that has been made of the entire 2016 presidential election.

Sometimes when I think about it I immediately tell myself to stop thinking about it. The idea of this election sends me into a constant, reoccurring thought of, “What is happening to us as Americans?”

Because what is happening to us?

If we really take a step back and look at the big picture it seems that we have lost so much faith in the American process that we have turned to a pompous reality star-turned politician to put things back together for us. The man can’t even maintain a hairstyle, so why on earth are we looking to him to solve our long-standing problems?

How is it that Donald Trump, the man who said those same things quoted above  — I mean he really, seriously said those actual things out loud — is the Republican front-runner?

And how is it that an independent candidate from Iowa who calls himself Deez Nuts polled at 9 percent in North Carolina? How is it that Kanye West thinks that announcing his plan to run for presidency in 2020 while giving a speech at the MTV Video Music Awards was a good move? How?

Even though the “West for President” thing wouldn’t be for another several years, the fact that he felt comfortable enough to share that nugget of information on such a national platform as the VMAs reflects the current status of the democratic process. I’m not sure when it became OK to nonchalantly say you’re running for president, but based on the caliber of a handful of the candidates this election cycle, I’m assuming they are the ones giving off that message.

I mean, come on people. Sure, I find all this funny. I find it funny in the “If I broke my arm and while my mom was taking me to the hospital the GPS started telling us to drive into a lake” kind of funny.

But after a while you have to tell the GPS to get it together. We will not drive into the lake. This is not the right way. Take me to the hospital. My arm hurts.

That’s what we need to do as a society. We need to say, “Our arm hurts!” We need to stick up for ourselves because Trump becoming president is a terrifying thought. Regardless if you agree with his political views, Trump is racist, sexist and bigoted. He has said terrible things about both Democratic and Republican candidates. He is openly rude to every single person he talks to, and yet somehow we are encouraging him to the point of real-life presidency.

Trump has a huge following behind him, despite his constant actions that appear to leave almost everybody with their jaw on the floor. Based on a phone survey taken at the end of August, Trump is leading the race for the Republican candidacy in Iowa with 32 percent and is followed by Ben Carson, who has 16 percent. On the Democratic side of things, Hillary Clinton is at 45 percent with Bernie Sanders at 17 percent.

Meanwhile, all the poll percentages must have given West the idea to run for presidency because on Aug. 30, West announced his future plans for America. Just wait until the 2020 election, and the polls are going to read something along the lines of Kanye West at 35 percent with a pair of socks trailing behind at a steady 12 percent.

Don’t worry because once the next presidential election rolls around we will all end up giving the presidency to a rock we found outside the Memorial Union.

2016 is the year of the monkey, according to the Chinese Zodiac, and 2016 is also the year that will give us ample opportunity to make a monkey out of this country. Despite the fact that some may say it was written in the stars, it’s our time to take steps to prevent a colossal screwup in this country of ours. We have to act now or we’ll end up hearing things like this during the State of the Union address:

“I do not wear a rug. My hair is 100 percent mine.”

— Guess Who