This writer spells out my dilemma much better than I ever could
The entire article is well-written; I snipped a couple sections for space,
but you can click at the top or the bottom for the whole thing.
Enough of the “Us vs. Them” binary: Why I’m writing in Bernie Sanders on election day
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump strike me as dishonest and untrustworthy, so I refuse to vote for either of them
Bernie Sanders (Credit: Reuters/Jim Urquhart)
On Nov. 8, 2016, approximately 54 percent of all eligible U.S. voters will flex their Constitutional right to vote in the general election. In case you aren’t aware of how Americans prioritize their politics, here’s a glimpse: 74 percent of this same demographic tuned in to watch the Super Bowl last year.
Most of us were taught from kindergarten on that our government is a Democracy and that America is the freest country on Earth. Perhaps the reason so few of us vote is that the benefits of all this democratic freedom don’t always measure up to all the hype. For example, instead of having one presidential candidate to choose from – like in a dictatorship – we get two.
It’s a recipe for division if there ever was one. Pit Team A against Team B with the task of solving problems that effect all sides and just watch how little progress can be made. The greater good loses every time.
“Groupthink” – a hallmark of political parties – suppresses independent thought, creativity and dissent and encourages bias and irrational decision making in the “in-group” while any “out-group” is discounted as inferior and scorned. These aspects are intensified when only two groups are powerful enough to achieve a desired goal – in this case, winning an election – and people are forced to choose between them. The human mind shifts to binary mode when presented with only two choices, an evolutionary leftover from times when a snap judgment of “Us vs. Them” could determine our survival. The tendency nowadays is to identify with one and repudiate the other. Normally, it’s not until a third or fourth option is presented that critical thinking is engaged.
If anything ought to be grounds for critical thinking it’s the selection of our government officials who vote on our laws and decide on whether our sons and daughters are sent off to war overseas. Instead, most of us vote to promote our party’s victory or to thwart the other party’s.
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In his Farewell Address, Washington referred to “The alternate domination of one faction over another …” as a “frightful despotism.” While Adams had this to say: “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties … This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
More than “dislike” political parties, Jefferson held them in contempt: “If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”
As an independent voter, I’ve naturally grown accustomed to compromise when deciding whom to vote for. In the past, when there hasn’t been a candidate who’s inspired my support, I’ve voted for whoever seems the less likely to cause much damage, the candidate who seems most trustworthy and honest.
Since both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are dishonest and untrustworthy, I can’t, in good conscience, vote for either of them.
Instead, this election I plan to do something I haven’t done before. I plan to write-in my candidate of choice: Bernie Sanders. And I’m not alone. Millions of others fed up with divisive Establishment politics plan to do the same – if not write in Bernie Sanders, then vote for a third-party candidate.
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Regardless of who’s been president over the past 30 years, median household incomes have either stagnated or steadily declined. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer as the middle class is diminishing altogether and neither Democratic or Republican incumbents seem to do a damn thing but make it worse. Should Hillary get elected, 4 of 5 presidents in the last 30 years will have been a Clinton or a Bush.
It’s no wonder that Hillary and Trump have respectively earned the highest “unfavorable” ratings of any Democratic or Republican presidential candidate in history, which might have something to do with a couple other things they have in common: a history of outright lying to the public and hundreds of millions of dollars amassed through surreptitious means.
While both parties push for unity, members who aren’t “with her” or with him are being urged to vote against the other party by voting for their party’s nominee. This twisted logic implies that at least you’ll be doing your part as a member to help your party win.
Voting for someone you dislike to block someone you despise is commonly known as choosing between “the lesser of two evils.” This phrase has seen prolific usage as of late. It’s apropos if a little misleading since I don’t think most Americans perceive either candidate as literally evil. But, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose for a minute they are.
Evil’s most prevalent, recognizable trait is a lack of empathy for others’ pain and suffering. If I had to decide if Hillary or Trump were the lesser of two evils based solely on how empathetic each comes across, I’d probably end up voting for Trump.
Many Democrats are genuinely fearful of what a Trump incumbency might mean for the future of America. But I just can’t bring myself to fear him. For one, his more ridiculous and dangerous ideas would be held in check by Congress – he is, after all, only one man. And though he’s made a sweeping array of insensitive comments mainly about certain ethnic groups and women, they were so stereotypical as to sound like drunken rants from a Southern Uncle at a down-home barbeque. Ignorant and inflammatory? Yes. Lacking in empathy? I’m not so sure.
Hillary gave an interview to Diane Sawyer in 2011 in which she joked, then gleefully guffawed about her role in the assassination of Libyan ex-Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi. Some people take pleasure in an enemy’s death, I suppose. But the mission also entailed the deaths of dozens of innocent women and children, which Hillary surely knew about.
More recently, she was criticized for donning a $12,000 jacket while giving a speech on income inequality. A staggering 46.7 million people in the U.S. live beneath the poverty line, a family of four earning roughly $24,000 a year – twice the amount of Hillary’s jacket.
By pointing out a few times when Hillary seemed empathy-deficient I’m not implying she’s evil, only that these instances cause me to question how committed she really is to protecting and fighting for children’s and women’s rights and to alleviating poverty.
And then we have Bernie Sanders, not a nominee but still an important player who will be taking his political revolution to Philadelphia for the Democratic Convention on July 25th. He’s been fighting for the same issues since the Sixties, not vacillating once. His whole platform is built on empathy for others, on mitigating others’ suffering by working toward social justice in the realms of economy, public education, healthcare, gender and race.
By informing the public of things previously not widely understood – like the meaning of Democratic Socialism and superdelegates’ superhuman sway – he called attention to the ways corporate politics mislead and manipulate the public. In doing so, he made enemies of prominent leaders of the DNC.
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Whenever we stand against something instead of for something, we’ve already been defeated by negativity. Our position, rooted in groupthink dynamics, leads to reactionary decision-making and irrationality, is always founded in fear and is thoroughly non-progressive.
I won’t hear that my decision to opt out of the lesser-of-two-evils paradigm and vote for a candidate who isn’t on the ballot means I’m casting a vote for the “other” side or throwing my vote away. This kind of party-line propaganda is a self-perpetuating cycle, one that has played an influential role in landing our great nation in the mess it’s in today. If we keep settling for what we’re given – in this case two candidates disliked by most Americans – nothing can change for the better. The progressive and patriotic move is to reverse this regressive way of thinking by refusing to vote for anyone unworthy of the Office of President.
Fear is a powerful contagion. To stop it from spreading, we must become immune. The only way to do this is to stand together against those who would divide us, believing that the American dream of “liberty and justice for all” can still be realized and that, when it is, every one of us will reap its benefits.
https://www.salon.com/2016/07/17/en...im_writing_in_bernie_sanders_on_election_day/
