New York had its primary and Clinton and Trump won, as was expected. There are more primaries coming up but those two look to have their respective nominations locked up. True, there’s talk that the GOP is desperate to just flat out screw Trump out of the nomination. Which, while it would cost them this election, might alsosave the world. They won’t do it, because Trump brings in different voters, but it’s possible. (The Democrats were more shrewd in that they rigged it way in advance so that The Bern had no chance.) But screw all that. What I’m here today to tell you is: DO. NOT. VOTE.
(Or: stop encouraging people to vote.)
There have always been get out the vote efforts. Being from Chicago, our history is a little different. The Democratic Party Machine (literally called “The Machine”) would flat give people money, booze, whatever, drive them somewhere, hand them a pre-filled in ballot, and that’s that. (I’m sure there are areas of the country where Republicans did this but they aren’t nearly as obvious to me – they’re usually framed as efforts to stop people from voting.) And then there are just the run of the mill, “Hey, register to vote, it’s your right” blah blah blah.
I remember a PSA with P. Diddy and his, “VOTE OR DIE” slogan (I don’t know if it was his but I know he said it). The fucking dumbest thing I’d ever heard (maybe hyperbole). That sounds like something you’d hear at peak USSR times, not the mid 2000s in America. And sure enough, another election cycle arrives and the big push to get people to register and vote returns!
If you need to be encouraged to vote then you shouldn’t vote. Think about how little the average person knows about the world. Wasn’t it like 25% of people thought President Bush was responsible for 9/11? And I think there’s usually an equal number on the right who think Hillary is a secret communist lesbian (actually, now that you mention it). And we wantthose people to be voting? But it’s even worse than that. People are uninformed. Really uninformed. Scarily.
No, it’s not because they vote for the other guy or anything but just the basics of how things work. I’ve spoken with people who have college degrees – some with post-collegiate degrees – and they just didn’t know what each branch of the government did. One person thought the Vice President voted on every bill in Congress (no), one thought that the President could personally introduce legislation (nope), and don’t even get me started on the Supreme Court. People think that if Trump or Sanders are elected that they can unilaterally just lower or raise taxes – like we’re voting for a king. These are people who are otherwise smart but maybe aren’t inclined to vote until someone “encourages” them.
I appreciate that not everyone has time to follow the ins and outs of each candidate. And even if they did, so many of them are simply liars that what’s the point? Study every in and out of what Hillary Clinton stands for and you’ll come away with a headache and a drinking problem. (Follow Trump and you might have a drinking problem and a lack of faith in humanity) Nonetheless, at least there are those who make an effort to try and weed through it all. They put some effort into the process and aren’t manipulated by a 15 second ad they heard on the radio as they drove to the polling place.
If someone hasn’t registered to vote, if someone needs to be begged to vote, how involved are they going to be? How much will they know? You want that fucknut voting? Imagine a baseball team. And the owner finds a guy off the street who doesn’t really know baseball and begs him to manage the team (I think the Yankees did this a lot in the 70s – I know the Browns are actively doing it now). You think he’s gonna be any good? Of course not.
If people aren’t inclined to vote, so be it. Theright to do something doesn’t mean you need to do it, or even should do it. I have the right to sit in a dark room and drink until I vomit all over myself every night, doesn’t mean I should (tempting as it may be). As long as people aren’t be prohibited from voting, leave them alone. All that means is we’ll probably have a more informed group of people actually casting the ballots. Encouraging voting is encouraging more dumb people to vote which is increasing the likelihood of a bad candidate winning.
Fuck voting. Don’t do it if you don’t want to and stop trying to get others to do it.
Total farce.
Please.
DO. NOT. PUBLISH. THIS.
My number is (310) 570-6521) send me a text if you’d like to talk or to have any of the repeated half-truths in your article exllained/corrected/or re-contextualized.
For instance – there’s a good chance that Monica L worked (consciously or not) for Mossad. That Houma and Hill are an item etc.
Ian
Oh, gosh, you have no idea how much I hope this is true. Oh man oh man oh man.
The 25% figure you cite is a variable not a constant. (bush – 9/11)
Whatever the number, the story is far more complicated than you could possibly imagine – and Bush himself is the ONE guy in the room with a shred of plausible deniability left. VP oversees COVERT OPERATIONS because he can be PARDONED in a scheme that you or I might never imagine – but YOO could. (John Yoo war criminal and torture justfier – currently back at Leland Stanford U without charges.Exactly the kind of Machiavellian enabler that established the NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, as we now do or do NOT know it to be.)