I’ve decided. I’m not voting for HRC in the general no matter what happens. I’m just tired of voting for the lesser of two evils at this point in my life. I’ve voted in every election since I was eighteen, and I’ve never been happy with the choices until now. Either the candidate and I share some fundamental values, or I don’t vote for them. It doesn’t have to be 100% overlap, and with Bernie, it isn’t. I’m only voting local if Hillary wins the nomination.
Yeah, I could theoretically vote third party. But after the hatchet job they did with Nader (“It’s your fault for not being loyal to a party you don’t belong to!”) I see no reason to discourage Americans further from voting for third parties. I’d rather smirk and watch them stand with their hands on their hips going, “Why do we only have two parties?” I’m not a Democrat, and I certainly don’t want to be one if that means my vote is worthless in the face of bullshit superdelegates. I owe the party no loyalty and with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz still head of the DNC, I’d actively like to see it fall apart almost as much as I’d enjoy the Republicans falling to pieces.
Does this mean I might contribute to a Trump win? In a sense. If Trump wins, my state voted for him and wasn’t going to turn blue for Hillary in a million years. It just doesn’t go to establishment Dems. The thing about Trump to remember, however, is that he’s inept and doesn’t know how the government works. I expect he’ll be a disaster, but that we’ll survive the disaster, and he’ll be a lame duck if he doesn’t get impeached first. My one fear is a confrontation between Trump and Kim Jong-Un. That situation is explosive.
Here’s what happens if Hillary wins: Nothing. She’s not going to inspire the kind of turnout that will necessarily have downstream momentum, she’s likely going to get stuck with another obstructionist congress, and as a confirmed corporatist we’re not going to see much change from the current status quo. Meanwhile, while Trump’s damage will likely only affect the country that voted for him and maybe Mexico, Hillary was the Secretary of State under Obama. We’re going to see a continuation of the Obama doctrine, which means we’re going to see people in countries that didn’t vote for her die. Hillary’s record as a hawk is nigh indisputable, and I see no reason that we’re going to see any kind of improvement in the disposition of various national surveillance programs. None of this is stuff I want, so I see no reason to vote for her either.
Fundamentally, I only see one candidate with any kind of agenda I’m actively interested in pursuing. Asking me if I want to eat shit or drink piss and telling me that if I don’t choose, the choice will be made for me doesn’t incentivize me to pick one. Yes, one is probably a lot worse, but no, I don’t want the other and I’m not going to reward your efforts so that you offer me the same choice four years later. That’s not progress, it’s not even incremental. It’s stagnancy, and I’m done with it. So Bernie or bust, and if you think for one second that I’m happy that there’s one choice out there for me, you’ve got another thing coming.
Here’s a pretty video to counter some of the sourness and pessimism in this post.
