Voting for President in America is a farce, but it’s our farce
Help out a third party in Illinois by voting your conscience, or, consider what Party candidate most closely shares your vision
The past year has activated my interest to be involved in politics once again, particularly state and local politics. While I have no interest in candidacy or anything like that, I very much have interest in sharing my views with folks who might want to listen. I have traditionally moved in conservative circles on my economic views, and liberal circles on my social views (although I can outflank and shock both, even within their own party, depending on the topic). Vermilion County is actually a uniquely purple place that produces more than its share of people like me. To examine these viewpoints, I think it’s helpful to start at the top and speak broadly. Then, I would love to dig into each specific set of issues in a series of posts. Feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.
To begin, let’s look at the Presidential race. Luckily we are in Illinois and our vote for that race absolutely doesn’t matter. That might be frustrating, but it’s also the least impactful race to our daily lives; it’s OK it doesn’t matter. I actually think it’s liberating, because when/if I decide to vote, I can always vote my conscience and not for the lesser of two evils. This year, for instance, I’ll be writing in Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver. I do this, yes, because the candidate shares a lot of my views, but also because Illinois has some of the worst ballot access in the country for third parties and the Libertarians are the largest third party. They get increasingly better access depending on votes, and I very much think diversifying the political voices in our system is unequivocally good. In fact, I’d much prefer ranked voting or other systemic changes that would diversify these voices, but that’s for another time.
However, it does help to think about the two top Party candidates and ask yourself, “Whose vision does mine MOST align with?” For me, this year, that’s Harris. Look, I’m as shocked as you. I am not a Harris supporter and will not be voting for her, but if you take the vision being presented as one of America being strong because it’s diverse, a place where we defend the rights of everyone, a place where you are free to be you without discrimination, a place where long-standing systemic disparities have produced artificial inequality worthy of correction, a place where we believe there is a baseline that individuals should not fall below, a place where education and healthcare are worthy investments for the good of future society, a place where the rich freely share of their good fortunes, a place where the ideals of America reign supreme while their practice leaves something to be desired, a place where the only wall worth building is the one between church and State, then I think the Democratic vision is the correct one.
By contrast, Trump’s vision is divisive and exclusionary. He lacks character, is old and showing signs of it, and has a track record of very questionable behavior and decisions. He is a rich, coastal elite, whose dad gave him a few million in loans to get started in 80s New York real estate development, laughably selling himself as the defender of the white working class. He’s been president before and didn’t do anything he said he’s going to do this time the last time he was in office. Sometimes he did the opposite! His entire schtick is limited to riling up the white working class and telling them that immigrants and DEI hires have stolen their birthright. While there is certainly an element of justified anger there – because, after all, it’s sort of like the white working class is being asked to pay for immigrants and DEI through decreased access themselves, instead of it being directly paid for by rich global capitalists, the real perpetrators and beneficiaries of historic discrimination – the open racism and willful ignorance is just plain boring and unimaginative at this point. Democrats are doing themselves a disservice by not taking it at Trump. Hard. Personally, I think they should go further and call a spade a spade. Trump’s a racist, misogynist, and possibly a bigot; that shouldn’t be controversial. Especially now after he’s said as much. Say it! I think the kid gloves should come off and we should be openly discussing agenda points along these lines, as dispassionately as we can, just so everyone can see how cartoonish the Trump brand is. When he says something racist, he needs confronted with it. Trump is a bully, and you don’t stop a bully by letting them do what they want. You stop a bully by confronting them, by showing them that there is a cost to their bully behavior. Generally, it doesn’t take much. Bullies tend to be the biggest snowflakes.
That’s not to say Harris is without her share of negatives. Heavy, heavy negatives. Glaring, woeful negatives. She’s a cop and a prosecutor who continues to want to prosecute the drug war and whose solutions in criminal justice have long been to just cop harder. She’s a globalist who will do nothing to de-escalate in Ukraine and would love to continue prodding both Russia and China (obviously neither one is a good guy here, but nobody really is in international politics). Those globalist tendencies also will go nowhere toward restoring some of the industrial base offshored during the 80s-00s, because to do so would be against the interests of powerful global capital, her chief base of support. Her economic policies are little but platitudes, and many may open dangerous or ill-thought out precedents. This globalist backing includes public health and science organizations who waged an information war against the People during the pandemic, all so a pharmaceutical company could get a trial that ethically couldn’t have happened otherwise, and then acquiesced as that company wrote the law that gave them immunity from damages incurred from this campaign of lies. She is a sympathizer who will do nothing, even if she could, to curtail Israel’s campaign of unquestionable ethnic cleansing.
Which, I suppose, brings me to my philosophy being one of unity. Not within a party, but BETWEEN the parties. Unity of the people. Look I understand that the fringes of the Left and Right are not going to be happy with that. Neither will ever be happy with that, or anything else. But that’s OK! They are fringe for a reason, and while I fully support their right to share their voices (and wish our political system allowed for them to better take part), I also don’t think anyone should care about their perpetual anger. Most people are in the middle somewhere, and after a nice healthy election season of sharing opinions and policies, America is a place that then comes together, puts all that on a back burner, and gets to work building communities and a country of which they can be proud.
Leave a Reply