If asked what I thought of the election, this would be my immediate response.
I’m basically a lifelong single-issue voter. My single issue is that because the Republicans are in bed with fundies, fascists, and white supremacists they must be kept from power and driven out of office by any non-violent means necessary.
The Democratic Party is a fundamentally conservative one. They are only as liberal as their corporate donors allow them to be. They are only as progressive as activists and voters force them to be. Joe Biden himself is a neoliberal stooge, not much better than Hillary Clinton. He might be a capable administrator, which is really all a President should be in this republic, but he is not much of a leader in a republic burdened by a feckless legislature that has delegated too many of its enumerated powers and a judiciary whose supreme court is infested with corrupt judges committed to a morally and intellectually bankrupt ideology (conservatism).
It doesn’t help at all that so many people exhorting people like me to “vote blue no matter who” are shrill and self-righteous busybodies who use their activism as justification for bullying anybody who dares disagree with them. Some of these assholes weren’t even a wet spot beneath their mothers when I cast my first ballot, and they’re going to give me grief for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about voting for yet another corrupt old man?
I have, nevertheless, voted a straight blue ticket since 1996. The Democrats might be shit, but the Republicans are far worse. Voting for a third party, or not voting at all, only helps the Republicans. Helping the Republicans means helping white supremacists, Christian dominionists, neo-Nazis, and billionaires. What have any of these assholes done for me and mine that I should help them win elections?
I am, of course, signaling consent for my continued oppression under a terminally corrupt system, an empire approaching collapse that clings to its republican trappings. What else am I to do besides vote for the lesser evil? Should I vote for Cthulhu instead?
It’s certainly tempting. If elections are indeed rigged by the richest among us, so that they continue to profit from the status quo no matter who gets elected, then why not “waste my vote”? I’m wasting it anyway by rubber-stamping the system’s current existence. I mean, 1789-2024 is a good run. The US is still on its first republic, whereas France is on their fifth. The only reason I’m not more ardent about burning the whole system down is that there’s no guarantee that another Constitutional Convention will yield a better result than the last one.
Besides, there’s still the continuing threat of a second Trump presidency, which won’t end while Il Donald lives. Where’s John Wilkes Booth when you need him? Hell, what would it take for his Secret Service detail to deal with him as the Praetorian Guard dealt with Caligula once his excesses became intolerable?
‘Cause I’m certainly not going to make an attempt myself. I’m not that patriotic, and I would regard such patriotism as misguided. While I’d never betray my country, I don’t love it so much that I’d risk my life and what little liberty I possess for its sake. If I had ever wanted to take a bullet for my country, I could have served in the armed forces, though as Smedley Butler suggested in War is a Racket that’s just making the world safe for capitalism. Besides, if the Secret Service didn’t kill me for attempting a Second Amendment solution to a President who has grossly overstepped his authority, my wife would for having embarrassed her thus.
Then again, that’s probably why Trump had Mike Pence as his Vice President. It’s probably why Joe Biden has Kamala Harris as his VP, too. If the successor is worse, nobody will attempt to remove the current President from office no matter how egregious his abuses. Why do you think Trump was acquitted on both of his impeachments?
I don’t know what to do here. Even if leaving the country was a viable option for me, it would not help the people I’d leave behind. It would not help me, either. While the US is not the empire it once was, I know of no country worth emigrating to where the US’ influence is not present. I might as well stay and cast another ballot, for all the good it will do.
As I’ve written elsewhere, a single angry man with a gun does not a revolution make. Nor is revolution necessarily a workable solution; revolutions tend to replace old and sclerotic tyrannies with new and vigorous despotisms. If I helped overthrow the government I would be complicit in whatever oppressions the new regime inflicts upon the people. I probably have enough blood on my hands from my day job as a software developer.