I am loathe to get political. It is just such an ugly topic that brings out the tribalism in people. How tiresome are those people who post nothing but partisan political cartoons, insults and memes on their Facebook pages? Those people who turn every conversation into a discussion of the evils of liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism or whatever else.
But it has been said that you'd better take an interest in politics, or it will take an interest in you. We're subject to this system, so it behooves us to pay attention and give some thought to how we might steer the future in a favorable direction. Right now, the two officially sanctioned "directions" being offered to us are both roasted dog shit.
Fucking blonde haired, blue eyed, children of the corn lookin' motherfuckers. So overtly evil that both of them have been condemned by voting members of their own respective parties to an unprecedented degree. That's heartening if you ask me. It's something Republicans and Democrats can agree on for the first time in ages. "This choice blows". Neither is happy with their candidate and the fact that this is the "choice" being foisted on us only calls into question how much influence we ever had in determining who our party's candidate would be.
I was a Bernie man until he disappointed me by rolling over for Hillary. His reasoning is a mystery to me. He's an old man who likely won't get another chance at this, surely it would have been better to fight it out to the end? Nobody wants President Trump, he's everybody's playground bully armed with billions of dollars and now possibly political office as well. But Hillary is exactly, to a T, the sort of sociopathic establishment politician that we've been saying we've had enough of for decades.
This must be the election where all of us, regardless of past affiliation, finally put our collective foot down and tell the two party system to go fuck itself. Never before have voters from both parties been so united in their feelings of alienation and betrayal. Now is the time to remember that we truly have other options. We just have to be brave enough to take them.
Gary Johnson, as a Libertarian, is ideologically closer to the views of the founding fathers than any Republican has been in many decades. He has some proposals that you're likely to find objectionable that stem from his minarchist (minimal government) views, but also a very lax, permissive approach to issues like drugs, gay marriage and religious freedom you may find intriguing and appealing. It's a mixture we haven't really tried before, not to the extent of putting a Libertarian in the white house. Perhaps this is the time to give it a shot? It cannot possibly be worse than Trump. If you're a Republican, Johnson should be your man for 2016.
Jill Stein has the classical Liberal worldview most Northern and city dwelling Americans now identify with, but she is sincere about it, principled, and emotionally invested in the humanitarian side of it. This is not a cold, calculating politician like Hillary. She cares about the working poor, the marginalized, the disabled and elderly. Her environmentalism is not a political maneuver but born out of appreciation for the beauty of nature and desire for our grandchildren to be able to enjoy it as we do.
She has some nutty views about vaccines and disputed health effects of short range radio like wifi. Like Johnson she isn't perfect and has some rough edges. But there can be no serious argument that she isn't a vastly better than Hillary. If you're a Democrat, Jill Stein deserves your vote.
Trump assumes Republicans will vote for him no matter what he says or does, just to fuck Democrats. He takes Republican support for granted even as more and more fall away, alienated by his crass stupidity, fake Christianity and total isolation from the average man's day to day experience.
Hillary assumes she has every Democrat's vote in the bag. She thinks you'll vote for her just to avoid a Trump presidency, and once in office, she'll do whatever she pleases regardless of campaign promises. Each uses the other to exert leverage on voters to make us consolidate behind one of them out of hatred of the other.
We always bitch and moan about how the two party system is set up to manipulate us this way. But when it comes down to it in the polling booth, we still overwhelmingly vote in a fearful tribalistic way, perpetuating the system we claim to hate. This MUST be the year that we actually live our principles and finally prove to the candidates chosen for us, not by us, that we won't obediently fall in line and do what they expect this time.
They're playing us off each other. Each uses the other to channel people into two diametrically opposed, hate fueled tribes, ignoring the other far superior options out there. If you're reading this, when I say we all have to actually, truly buck the two party system this year, I mean you too.
Johnson isn't perfect. You won't get everything you want from him because he isn't an extremist. He has varied, nuanced positions like an actual reasonable, thoughtful human being. Likewise with Jill Stein. These are real people, not larger than life, plastic cartoon characters like Hillary and Trump. So there will be things about them you like and things you don't, but either would represent a larger percentage of the US public than Hillary or Trump.
More of us can win when we don't insist that it means everybody else loses, besides which the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. That they aren't your ideal dream candidate shouldn't prevent you from taking this opportunity, where parties outside the Republican/Democrat false dichotomy are this publically visible, talked about, competent, put-together and human, to make a real difference with your vote. A vote which doesn't reinforce the prevailing system but undermines it, unravels it, to make these other superior choices truly viable not only for this election but all elections after it.