“i don’t like either candidate so i won’t vote” what are you thinking, if enough people wuss out we’re going to have President None Of The Above? hey we’re counting the votes and ten percent of voters stayed home and jerked it to their own ideological purity, guess we just won’t have a president and all the executive level decisions will be made by a magic 8-ball for the next 4 years
i wrote this 2 years ago and – yeah. look, let’s just learn, ok? midterms coming up, pull up your big citizen pants and go do the thing.
I watched this special with Chris Hayes where he went to Michigan, where 90k people “voted” but left the box for president empty. And I could not wrap my head around it. Some white boy sitting on a stool like “well maybe you would vote if everything was going okay for you, but I need change”. And I exploded. Its the height of privilege to abdicate that kind of responsibility under the faux guise of protest. No, its not because everything is going great, but because everything could be going MUCH WORSE. And i, as a queer woman, don’t want my rights ripped away and shat on. Im sorry that you’re just starting to feel the effects of wage stagnation that’s fucked the rest of us for over 40 years, and im sorry that you dont think a few trade deals turned out great for white people, but that is THE SHITTIEST REASON to throw women, black and brown people, the queers, and immigrants under the goddamn bus. You can always fight within your party for more progress, or to move things to the left. And honestly if it took this orange disaster for you to finally give a fuck, for you to realize you cant just vote once a year and act like your part is done, that should be a point of shame, not one of pride.
The second argument, equally blew me away. “I wasn’t going to vote for the lesser of two evils”. EXCUSE ME?!?! Please tell me what’s so evil about the following:
- Raising the minimum wage
- Repealing the Hyde Amendment (which bans federal funds, such as medicaid, from being used for abortion)
- Tax relief for working families
- forcing Wall Street and billionaires to pay their share
- relief from student debt
- deb-free college
- ending campus sexual assault
- paid family and medical leave
- expanding voter rights by: automatically registering voters, repairing the Voting Rights Act, setting a national standard for early voting, restoring voting rights to convicted felons
- ending conversion therapy
- passing the Equality Act “to protect people from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in every aspect of public life”
- Protecting and expanding the Affordable Care Act
And if you don’t believe me read Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Platform for yourself.
Maybe you don’t think she was “progressive enough” but look what you got in exchange: Muslim Ban, nazis in the street, thousands of immigrant children being ripped from their families, thousands of refugees turned away, and possibly 2 conservative supreme court judges that will change the face of America as you know it.
NOT VOTING IS NOT PROTEST, ITS LETTING SOMEONE ELSE DECIDE OUR FUTURE. And honestly, the rest of us can’t afford your moral purity.
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DarkestElemental616 