When I first registered to vote in 1993, I registered Libertarian. More as a lark than anything, because I was really Republican. My parents made me change it to Republican because I was, at that time, getting a degree in Criminal Justice and they said the police would never hire a Libertarian or a Democrat. Also, I guess, Jesus would be mad?
I did change it and proceeded to vote Republican for a while. But it wasn't long before I started voting 3rd party. Usually, if there was a Libertarian candidate, I voted Libertarian. I had reasons which are still good reasons mostly outlined in Thoreau's "On Civil Disobedience". In NC, there's a lot of 3rd party candidates to choose from.
If there wasn't a Libertarian, I'd vote for what I called "The Bollox Party." The goal was to create some manner of gridlock, especially in the Federal government. For example:
* Both houses of Congress fully 50% split between DNC and GOP
* One house GOP and one DNC
* Both houses one party and the president another party.
You get the idea. This was actually a lot of work to source a 3rd party candidate I could vote for in good conscience or really suss out the state of the Federal government so I could pick my candidates. But I always felt good about it. And I never worried about my vote because, especially for president, there was so little wiggle room between the GOP and DNC that I genuinely didn't care who won.
Take a little trip in the wayback machine to the halcyon days of 2008. During town halls with Obama and McCain, especially with McCain, the people expressed great fear about the other candidate becoming president. There's one in particular where one gentleman was talking about how Obama would ruin the country and McCain cut him off. He said he knew Obama and he trusted Obama and that, while they disagreed on how the country should be run, they could trust Obama too. I think McCain lost the election with the Republicans there, but he won me. And he kept winning me until that AMAZING thumbs down. I would vote for McCain's ghost over any candidate currently running.
In 2016, I definitely wasn't going to vote for T**** and I just couldn't bring myself to vote for Clinton. But it was ok, because I knew she would win. And I was looking forward to it because I knew she would do for women what Obama had done ... to show that anyone can be as corrupt and incompetent and disappointing as a White man.
But T**** won.
And he proved me wrong. SO wrong. Apparently, White men really are the fucking worst, or at least that White man. Orange man. Whatever. And he kept getting worse. Through the pandemic, through TWO justified impeachments, through the 2020 election and the January 6th riots and through this campaign, he's just gotten worse. And his cronies and supporters have gotten worse. And they just won't fucking GO AWAY!
I never voted for a Democrat before 2018. I've voted straight Democrat ever since. And I look at what Republican after Republican has done. Most of T****'s former staff, the Lincoln Project, hell, the CHENEY'S!!! They've all come out in support of Harris/Walz, not because they agree with them at all, but because T**** represents a unique danger to the country.
Quick history lesson. T**** might be the worse president in history but I'm waiting for a couple more years to determine that. In my estimation, the current title goes to Andrew Jackson. I'm not going to go into all of the reasons why, although I think the Trail of Tears by itself qualifies. But I'm not the only one who thinks it. After John Adam's Federalist Party disappeared, it was just Jefferson's Democrat-Republicans for many years. There wasn't another political party. At least, not one that could offer a candidate that could compete. But, Jackson was so bad that a political party developed specifically in opposition to him, the Whig party. It didn't last long because the one thing that united it was their hatred of Jackson and they were, thus, fractured. A lot of it eventually turned into the Republican party.
But here's my point. Jackson sucked. His party was destructive and dangerous. And people united, not because they had a common vision, but because he was so bad. Their united vision was to get rid of Jackson and his successors.
I'm not a huge fan of Harris or Walz. I would not have voted for either of them a decade ago. But this year, and every year until MAGA is purged from popularity, my voting is easy. It's straight Democrat until such a time as I can vote my conscience again. But any vote that puts T**** or anyone who supports him or his lies and racism and sexism and destruction of democracy anywhere near the White House is irresponsible in the extreme.
VOTE WHIG IN 2024!!!!
By the way, what would REALLY solve this problem is ranked choice voting. Then, you could vote your conscience AND practicality at the same time. Neither party will ever go for this. We're going to have to make it happen on a grassroots level.
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