When deciding what to write about this week, I came to the conclusion to write another piece on the election this Tuesday to emphasize it's importance and convince all readers to vote. This is not just any election, but the most important Presidential Election since the Civil War and likely in all of our lifetimes. It is not just an article, but a plea to whoever I can reach. Please go out and do the right thing on November 8th.
As an American observing this election, I feel like a passenger on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. For those who don’t know what this is, I'm referring to an old poem about a doomed ship expedition that costed all but one sailor’s life.The sole survivor shot and hung an albatross around his neck.The crew dies one by one and the mariner watches and returns home a cold shell of himself. During this election, in real life, people one by one are being taken into the abyss of insanity that has turned into the cult of Trump.
Think about where we were ten years ago to where we are now: Donald Trump, the brash and bossy rich mogul from The Apprentice, is the Republican presidential candidate and the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years. In other words, hell has frozen over and pigs can fly. There’s an apocalyptic feeling looming over the country and this world. Yet some people are cynical enough to say a giant meteor would be better than the results of this election.
As Tyler Durden said in Fight Club about current day generations, “We have no great war, we have no great depression.” He laments that today’s humans were not tested against ultimate survival with an ultimate battle that will have us obtain ultimate glory. Well, quite frankly, that is nothing but a mere fantasy and we should hope to never have to confront those things. I am sure that when they were young, people dreamed of rising up to an occasion against a great evil where we turn into all-powerful hero and save the universe. For us, that day is this Tuesday. We do not need to arm ourselves with weapons and shields of defense, but simply travel on a short drive and arrive at the voting booth with our ID's and our presence of mind.
I understand that some voters are openly against both top candidates and feel it necessary to vote for an independent candidate. To those voters, at least hear me out. I would applaud you for doing that in any election past or future, but not this one. This election is too important to take a neutral stance. I can assure you just from history and the notoriety of the two main candidates, that no independent candidate has a prayer to win and how they are still running in the first place I cannot explain. I know that might not still be enough to convince you and I respect your intentions, but remember what Dumbledore said:
While I have my case to share with neutral voters, I know at this point I can’t convince committed Trump voters to change their minds (despite the overwhelming mountain of reasons why they should not vote for him). It would be like trying to convince a snail not to jump into a bucket of salt because it benefits no one but Trump. I could write a list on why they are wrong and what I think of them, but really they should YouTube "Cersei Lannister Shame Walk".
I personally will be voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton on November 8th. My one and only reason is because she is the only candidate who will eliminate Donald Trump from the presidential race. What kind of president she might become is secondary and I believe she will be, at worst, a holdover for a better candidate for 2020. Who knows? Maybe her email scandals will develop into such a frenzy that she’ll have to resign before we get used to her being president. If this happened, maybe we would will actually have a real holdover president in Tim Kaine. We know politicians are shady and have skeletons in their closets.The three most popular television shows in the world: Game Of Thrones, House of Cards and The Walking Dead, all have the same common theme-- in order to survive and seek power, your honor needs to be compromised. The bigger the heart, the more easy you are to kill. We know that even the politicians with the cleanest images (Barack Obama and Joe Biden) could only do so much in the most powerful positions in the American government. Obviously Hillary Clinton has skeletons in her closet, or in literal terms, emails in her account, but those accusations are a tiny fraction of the scandals and misdeeds compared to her opponent. We know by now that most politicians are poisoned with corruption anyway, so why protest that now when our vote is critical?
The number one goal of this election in my mind is to unite and give Clinton the highest possible lead over Trump. While the general polls say she has a slim lead over him, that is still not good enough. The only acceptable result is a lead with no drama and no suspense. Anything could happen and we should not trust whatever whomever says. Think the wildest and most outlandish conspiracy theories out there-- the Russians are hacking the voting booths to give Trump a state that will give him the edge; Trump supporters are going into the voting booths and manipulating them into having Hillary votes turn into Trump votes. Assume that Trump supporters are arming themselves with stun guns at the booths and call the police to make sure they are destabilized and bring your own weapons of self-defense.
Bring your copy of George Orwell’s 1984 to remind yourself what could happen if you choose the wrong candidate. Watch the famous “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” from the movie Network, listen to the entire catalog of Rage Against the Machine. Watch YouTube videos of Keith Olbermann’s thorough and convincing think-pieces on the catastrophic consequences of Trump being president.
With the final word: As we step off the cold and cursed ship on November 8th, I cannot stress enough that your vote for the right candidate could be the difference between stepping back onto the land of the free, or the home of its grave.
