I have a dilemma.
If I respect democracy, do I agree to throw it out when that’s what we all vote for? Even if that vote is heavily manipulated, despite the fact that every individual voter would personally swear they are making a free choice?
Because what we have here is an overwhelming, if uninformed, vote against democracy. Hillary Clinton supporters clearly have no problem with #ElectionFraud so long as it installs their preferred candidate. Trump supporters I doubt would have any more integrity given the authoritarian leanings of their politics generally, and their tolerance for corporate cheating and corruption on capitalist or social Darwinist grounds.
And then you have the bulk of American citizens who overwhelmingly don’t vote, which is a clear vote against having a say in politics at all.
Perhaps what this election is really about is voting down democracy. Bernie being the last remaining actual democrat, the majority of Americans when presented with the option of him, chose one of the others.
His entire platform is/was populist. And still the vast majority of people either voted in the other party entirely or didn’t vote at all, whether or not you subtract HRC’s votes entirely because #ElectionFraud, that remains true.
It would seem the suspension of democracy is the will of the people. But if the will of the people is manipulated, should I still respect it? But if I respect it, must I then instantly disrespect it as their will is that I ignore their will?
This mess is like the idea of the ultimate meaning of tolerance for intolerance. It’s almost like the trolley problem.
In the end I’m voting for #JillNotHill on the grounds that the choice was not informed or clear. The choice was manipulated. And that so long as we are still officially a democracy for the moment, it is my function to attempt to persuade my peers of my vision of what is best for us all.
And here is my core argument. The democratic primary was a national coup d’état. Most people weren’t even aware of what was at stake, thus the vote against democracy at that time is invalid. Does that matter to people? Time will tell. In any case it left us in a position of choosing between two non-democratic candidates. An overt authoritarian demagogue and an election rigging usurper.
We all know that third parties are usually a symbolic and wasted vote, if not a spoiler vote, but in this case I don’t believe that to be true. Now, I know Jill won’t win. That would be nice, but it’s not going to happen. However, I think getting her 5% or more of the vote is perfectly achievable given the anger independents should feel at being shut out of the process for decades, combined with the recent theft of the democratic primary.
If even half of Bernie’s supporters vote Jill, that would get her the 5% alone. And that 5% means federal funding for the greens and recognition as a legitimate major American political party. This party would allow the 2020 election to be a much more informed vote as the green candidate would be included in televised debates and the media would be forced to recognize them, even more than they recognized Bernie. Which of course wasn’t much given DNC/MSM collusion and corruption, but still it was an appreciable fraction of his due as a major candidate, and orders of magnitude more than Jill Stein or any other third party candidate got.
So here’s my thinking: If you are afraid of Trump and or Hillary, and you live in a deep red or blue state, then you can vote Jill safely because your state’s vote will not be changed by your vote. If you live in a swing state, vote as you feel you must, but realize that either way, Trump or Clinton, our next president will be the most obstructed in American history. Their experience will make Obama’s two terms look like a unanimous mandate by comparison. Whoever wins the next election would have a hard time passing a law affirming that the sky is blue much of the time let alone anything approaching substantive change so really not a lot is on the table comparatively speaking. And certainly it’s nothing we can’t work to fix in 2020.
Even if you completely disagree with Jill’s politics, you should still vote Jill if you want to see democracy itself on the ticket at all in 2020, because Jill isn’t going to win this time and the greens aren’t going to win next time. The objective here is not immediate victory. That option closed when Bernie was forced out. The objective is getting a voice for democracy and independents on stage in 2020. Plus, if you favor a different third party you’ll have helped to show that third parties can reach 5% or better. The reason I choose Jill is not because I agree with the majority of her politics, but because the disenfranchised Bernie Sanders vote does, and they essentially have nowhere to go with their vote. Jill’s actual threshold thus is far less than 5% because she’ll get a good chunk of Bernie’s old vote by default.
Yes, some will be swayed by fear or blind partisan loyalty and vote HRC, but I think many of his voters were non-voters to begin with and when given a choice between staying home or voting for Jill for the long game, will vote for Jill.
So if you want to see some truth in the debates in 2020, if you want democracy to still have a seat at the table, and cliché as this may be, if you believe in the true American way, then you really should vote Jill.
So that’s my advice.
#JillNotHill
See Also: http://underlore.com/the-electionfraud-is-real/
Well spoken and very true.