Excuses, Excuses…and an election to throw.
Did you know that Hitler was elected with only 43% of the vote?
It’s time for the most important math lesson of our lives.
Just like in 2016, too many of us are protesting our options on the ballot. The voices are loudest in the presidential race.
Just like in 2016, it’s certain segments of the population, and just like in 2016, the complaints have a familiar ring to them.
“I just can’t vote for a woman.”
“Kamala isn’t ready to be president.”
“Inflation is killing me, and Joe Biden hasn’t gotten rid of it; how can Kamala fix it?”
“I don’t like either major party’s candidate, so I’m going to vote for Jill Stein (Green Party), write someone in, or not vote at all.”
And just like in the 2016 election, you’ll be helping to elect Donald Trump again.
It’s the only possible outcome, because that’s how math works. A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Trump, and not voting is – also – a vote for Trump.
This year, I’m observing some groups announce their protest voting intentions and feeling a draining sense of doom, because we’ve been there and done that before.
In 2016, I warned about this outcome over social media and in person with many who felt compelled to register their protest as opposed to electing a candidate who would have been measurably better for all of us than what we got.
Their indignant need to make a statement took us down a dangerous path that gave us four years of a Trump presidency and built the potential for another term.
I would have given anything not to have been right that November. We will always live with that “unintended consequence,” and so will our descendants.
You may have heard the saying: Republicans fall in line; Democrats fall in love.
Republicans do what they’re told and vote a straight Republican ticket. Democrats fall in love with a candidate, an issue, or an ideal, and decide to make a statement rather than consider what could happen.
If we don’t get everything we want, we take it to the ballot box. Voting for a third-party candidate or not voting at all is how some of us register our displeasure, and we’re quick to voice our decisions with pride.
In some swing states in 2016, the margins of loss for Hillary Clinton were very close to the numbers of votes for the Green Party candidate, write-ins, and non-voting protesters. We literally lost the presidency to Trump with a nationally unfocused will – and voting.
If that was your approach in 2016 or 2020, please think differently this time.
This year, ahead of the November 5th election, we’re hearing the same complaints and harboring the same fears.
Why bother in Alabama, which will certainly go for Trump? I can come up with two reasons.
First, in a state where Democrats are the minority vote (there aren’t necessarily fewer of us; we just don’t all vote), voting in stronger numbers can build momentum once others see that there are more of us and “come out” as Democrats themselves.
Everyone innately wants to be a part of a winning tribe, and it’s time Alabama Democrats took steps to grow our party. The one thing we can each do to help is to simply vote.
Secondly, to quell repeat accusations of a stolen election, a rising popular vote even in red states will add to the ability to beat down the inevitable desperate cases that will be filed by Trump loyalists.
If Trump hasn’t gone off the deep end before the election, losing the popular vote by even more than in 2020, his ego may take a final blow that will keep him out of politics going forward.
Black men, Gen Z and Millennials are the groups making the loudest claims of not voting for VP Kamala Harris. I hope they will do some reflection on the possible outcomes of sitting this one out, or voting 3rd party.
In America, a 3rd party cannot mathematically win, and your protest vote won’t change that fact.
Inflation. If inflation is your hot button, Democratic president Joe Biden has strengthened our economy to the point that inflation is back to pre-pandemic, pre-Trump levels.
If inflation is hurting your ability to put food on the table, what you’re really looking are at the numbers related to record-breaking profit margins. You’re looking at corporate greed.
Gaza and the Middle East. What’s happening in Palestine and the Middle East is of deep concern to all of us, but Palestine may not be what we see on the surface. Don’t think the level of escalation wasn’t planned and timed intentionally. Remember when Israeli prime minister came to the United States to visit with Congress, then Biden, and went straight to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump?
What could go wrong with two corrupt leaders show will do anything to stay out of Prison?
What did Trump promise him? Maybe he’ll look away from Netanyahu taking over the rest of Palestinian lands. Maybe he promised him Lebanon. Anything to win the election and avoid prison.
Your vote is far more powerful than you can imagine. Last words: November 5th.
