April 3, 5784 5th Age
Confessions, Realizations, and Redemptions:
A Letter to My Younger Self
Dear Short-sighted Idiot,
I get you.
In my 20s, I was what was then called an independent, and will be soon be called an enabler of fascism. I voted for Ralph Nadar. Twice.
I didn’t really dislike either Al Gore or John Kerry. To be perfectly frank, I had issues with Gore’s wife, whom I saw as a crusader for government-sponsored censorship (look up Tipper Gore if you want to know more), but otherwise, I liked Al Gore well enough. (I do think history will take a more generous view of Gore, a less generous view of his wife, given events of the early 21st century, but that’s a conversation for another day).
Mostly, I didn’t feel like either Gore or Kerry were paying enough attention to the issues that mattered to me: women’s rights; climate change; income inequality. I wanted to send a message with my vote, a message that these issues would be ignored at the peril of whomever won and to the sorrow of whomever lost.
Well, message received, loud and clear, right? How’s the passage of the ERA, the end of climate change, and all that financial equality working for ya, America? You’re fucking welcome!
Oops.
So, if you’re voting 3rd party (or staying home), believe me, I get it. Your vote is a scared thing, one of the few things in this life that belongs solely to you. The person to whom we give our vote, our seal of approval, reinforces our sense of self. “This is who I am,” says our vote. “A person who stands up for what’s important to her, no matter the cost.”
I voted for Nader…again, twice…because he stood for things I believed in and I wanted to send a message reminding the world, especially the part of the world empowered to DO something about my concerns, that these things are not only important to me; they should be important to everyone. It was noble. I’m proud of my stance.
Here’s why I was wrong.
· “If my 3rd party pick gets 10%+ of the vote, whomever wins will have to listen to us or risk alienating a large portion of the country,” you, my younger self, says.
Yeah, nope. Bush didn’t listen to the environmental lobby, the League of Women Voters, or the Israel-Palestinian coalition groups. If anything, he deliberately antagonized us in order to score points with his donors and core base.
If you imagine that you can vote for someone else but Biden will still squeak by and then he’ll finally pay attention to your outrage over Gaza or “inflation” (it’s going down under Biden) or whatever your pet issue is, think again. Biden, who has served the American people for his entire life, in the last job he’ll ever have, with all his experience and connections around the world…well, he won’t put you in jail for not voting for him, but he’s not going to take your call either. He’ll keep doing what he’s been doing all his life: fighting for the very things you claim to stand for. But he’ll do it without performing, without “sending a message,” because he doesn’t need to engage in performative messaging on freedom and equality, on dignity for all people everywhere, on women’s rights and protecting the world from climate change. He just gets it done. And at 81, with nothing left to audition for, and nothing left to prove to anyone, not even himself, he’s not going to give a crap what the peanut gallery has to say.
If you think tRump will worry about Cornel West voters or RFK, Jr voters and what you want, you are dangerously naïve. He will say what he has to say to make sure you don’t vote for Joe Biden. Then he’ll toss you aside as he has done with ever other person and group he’s pandered to. Your 3rd party vote won’t send any message to tRump other than that you are a useful idiot. And if you’re very, very lucky, he’ll let you keep your job, your freedom, your life. But probably not, because you’ve shown yourself to be a reactionary who can’t be trusted to toe the line in his new fascist America.
If your vote for anyone other than Joe Biden leads to getting tRump elected, pack a Go Bag when you get home from the polls. Because I guarantee you will be lumped in with the “enemies of America” and the “vermin” right along with the rest of us. In fact, if you’re Jewish, Hispanic, Black, Asian, Gay, Transgender, a woman, or, ya know, read books, you will be considered “enemies of America” by the tRump administration, no matter whom you voted for. And don’t expect people like me to come rescue you from the concentration camp you voted yourself into either. You’ve been warned.
· “If my 3rd party pick gets 10%+ of the vote, whomever loses will come crawling to us in order to avoid losing the next time,” you’re saying to yourself.
Oh, honey.
I suppose this might have been true in years past (I sometimes tell myself this when I’m feeling guilty about inadvertently electing George W. Bush). But it’s a fantasy now.
If tRump loses, he’ll BLAME you for not voting for him, and if he’s not in prison, he will put you on his enemies list and spend the rest of his life trying to destroy you.
If Biden loses, there will be no opposition party to cajole into hearing your demands. tRump will come after every Democrat, every person who spoke in opposition to him (including me, so it’s been nice knowing ya), and anyone who disagrees with him on any point, no matter how crazy. It will be taught in grade schools that cancer is caused by electric wind turbines and the flu is cured by drinking bleach. If you have the audacity to suggest that this doesn’t sound quite right, you will find yourself fired from your job, put in prison without trial, and your family will be rounded up and send to tRump’s gulag. If you think I’m being hyperbolic, ask Alexandr Navaly’s family about it.
In short, there’s no use trying to send a message to a minority party that doesn’t exist because its members have been executed and jailed en masse.
· “Even if this doesn’t change things one iota, I and those like me will go down in history as brave resistors who risked everything to change the world,” you expound to you cats and anyone unlucky enough to get into an elevator with you.
Sorry, no. This one doesn’t hold up either.
When you studied World War II in school, did you learn about all those brave Germans who voted third party in 1933 because they wanted to send a message? Me either. We just learned how they were all Nazis.
But you learned about me in school, right? We stalwart Nadar voters who sent a message in such strong language that it turned the page on climate change and ushered in a new era of taking care of our Mother Earth? We proud independent thinkers who finally brought peace and equality to the Middle East just by the power of casting our vote for the guy who could never win?
Yeah.
You see it right?
Stay home or vote 3rd party in 2024 and you’re not saying anything, not changing anything. In fact, you’re opting out of the hard work of taking a pretty good party (the Democrats) and making it great. It’s easier to stand on the sidelines and comment. It’s harder to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
If you stay home or vote 3rd party, you’re not sending a message anyone is going to hear. You’re just pissing in the ocean.
And history will not remember that you voted for West or Kennedy or sat this one out; your grandchildren will read about you in their history books as just another American Nazi.
Signed,
Your Middle Aged Self Who’s Learned Her Lesson and Will Be Voting for Biden
(And if he doesn’t pay enough attention to what matters to me, I’ll spend the next four years doing the thing that’s hard: persuading him)
