for the past two presidential elections, I’ve voted angry. in 2016, I rolled my eyes while picking Hillary Clinton for president. in 2020, I choked on my own bitterness to vote for Joe Biden.
this year, I felt nothing as I voted for the black woman.
for many, the fact that there’s even a black woman on the ballot is enough to bring at least a little light to an election process that feels apocalyptic, to say the least. I mean, it’s historic to be potentially looking at the first black woman president of the United States of America. but I was numb, from the 45-minute wait in the early voting line, to printing and then double checking my ballot, to getting my ‘I Voted’ sticker and rushing back out for the rest of the day’s errands.
I don’t know, fam. civic duties don’t hit the same.
yes, Kamala Harris is not Donald Trump. she’s infinitely more qualified and Black in all the right ways, but the appeal of voting for the lesser of two evils doesn’t really work when both are still eager to prop up (and take money from) organizations committed to genocide across the world. and while, theoretically, we could tap into the hope former president Obama peddled to us in 2008 since he’s been on the campaign trail this year just as much as Harris and Midwestern Dad in sappy made-for-TV movie Tim Walz, that well’s been dry for a minute.
also it’s old. voting for the lesser of two evils gets really old. when will we have a choice that’s just, ya know, not evil?
many folks are opting not to vote at all this year, akin to wishing on a dying star, and others are choosing to use their voices to support other candidates. I support any decision folks choose for themselves, but as apathetic as I am toward this entire process, I will always drag my ass up to those polls and cast an impactful vote, one, because my ancestors fought for the right to do so in even less favorable conditions and, two, voting non-two party in our current social structure will do more harm than good.
while I don’t remember a lot about the presidential elections in the ’90s, I do remember the tiny percentages third party candidates pulled from the donkey and the horse on TV that could have tipped the scales in one definitive direction. Ralph Nader was a nice enough guy, and Ross Perot was like voting for Yosemite Sam if he was from Dallas. neither were ever going to make the White House as an anti-establishment candidate, meaning their path wasn’t orchestrated or bought like the usual suspects. Jill Stein gives *opportunist* more than anything, and I only ever see her in a campaign cycle, not on the ground actually helping people. all of the third-party candidates we have on the ballot this year don’t have enough of a national base to seriously challenge, and pyrrhic victories are for Disney Channel coming-of-age movies, not elections that affect the entire planet.
it’s a foregone conclusion that Republicans will contest the results of this election and try to send the decision to their puppeteer Supreme Court to finish the job. Harris has refused in interviews to discuss this inevitability, opting to “focus on the present” and quietly build a team of lawyers ready to fight back. I’ve never really been a fan of the “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there” adage as a black American because we tend to get thrown off that bridge upon arrival. but we’ll be lined up soon enough.
as for me, I’ve done my time. unsubscribe me from the text alerts and emails, and approve my time off for the rest of the election week. I’m planning on it just being me, my anime backlog, and some apple cider until at least next March.