Psst! Wanna know a dirty little secret I have? A secret dirtier than stealing hundreds of rides on the NYC subway? Dirtier than me being a dirty atheist? More dirty than technically stealing money from Chase Bank (I'll write about that here one day)? Okay. But you guys gotta promise me something. What I'm about to tell you stays between you and me. The Internet Gods can't ever know about this.

Got it? Okay, here goes:

I don't vote.

The last and only time I ever did so was in 2008. Now, I can already see you revving up those Twitter fingers to flame me in that comments section. Before you do that, though, and before I explain why I no longer tug that long lever for any politician, let me quickly give my take on the presidential candidates and why I think they all rate 500 out of 10 on the Suckitude Meter.

Let's start with Public Enemy Number One:

Donald Trump: What else is there to say about the Orange Man? Failure to discern between the worst terror attack in American history and the greatest convenience store in American history. Racism and sexism that would make Archie Bunker blush. A snuggly family history with Klansmen. 'Nuff said there (BTW, Cruz and Kasich were just as horrible).

Hillary Clinton: At first glance, Hilary Clinton's candidacy should appeal to me. A cursory look through her campaign website shows a woman against climate change and sexual assault on campus and for LGBT rights. Then you dig deeper, see her Wall Street funding, and it all falls apart. Ditto for her covert racist "super predator" quote in '96.

Bernie Sanders: Ah, Bernie, the Millennial Folk Hero. The dahling of Billyburgers, who hispterize his posters between sips of Nordic iced tea. I want to like Bernie. He's like that really cool sociology professor I could converse with about leftist stuff who won't shout, "Palestinians are scum!" in response. And true to form, he's voted against the Iraq war, paid considerable attention to Black Lives Matter activists, and wants to give us free public college!

But while Bernie waxes poetic about voting against wars, he'll never mention how he's voted to fund them after the fact. He'll talk about not taking Wall Street money publicly but takes their dollars under the table.

He'll have Spike Lee invade your radios in New York, talking about how officers arrested him for protesting segregation in the '60s, but will say nothing about having the anti-war activists who occupied his office in 1999, protesting his support for the Yugoslavian war, arrested. What you're seeing with Bernie isn't always what you'll get.

Now that that's out the way, back to why I don't vote. Yes, people. I understand that people died for "my right" to vote (although people also died for our "right" to live in a world without capitalist oppression). But what does that fact have to do with the reality that no matter who wins the White House Heavyweight Championship in November, they will serve Exxon Mobile and BP over workers?

The chief role of any U.S. president, contrary to what many believe, is to protect the American Empire at all costs. That's code for massacring hundreds of thousands of black and brown people for military routes and oil. Trump, Hillary, even Bernie, it doesn't matter who wins, they'll all go in that direction.

Voting is arguably the greatest sham today. One P.T. Barnum himself couldn't pull off. Democracy is a nice, touchy-feely buzzword to convince us that we have a say in how the political process goes, but that's it. Yeah, we may get some reforms if we push hard, but reforms can never fully address our social ills.

After all, what's the point of making cops wear cameras when Eric Garner's life ended before cell phone optics and the Blue Boy who killed him got off?

And on a side note, I can't vote for the government whose constitution once said people my complexion weren't fully human.

Okay, now you've gone full-blown "You're so apathetic! How could you not vote and risk letting Trump get into office?! You have to pick an evil. You have no choice!" after reading that.

Have a Snickers bar real fast before continuing, mmkay? Thanks.

First off, believe me when I say I'm far from apathetic. I'm involved in my own political work. Just because that work doesn't involve electoral politics doesn't mean I'm passive.

Secondly, why do we have to subscribe to this "lesser of two evils" rhetoric? Granted, finding an antidote to this weave of elections is gonna be harder than a teenager sneaking into a strip club, but we can't let that curb our efforts.

In a perfect world, I feel like we as workers need to come together and figure out the answer among ourselves. Politicians will never have the solutions we need. Perhaps, we do.

I'm just saying.

Still convinced I'm totally wrong?

Alright, scratch that. This entire post was a troll. I'm voting for Pedro in six months.

Happy?