I voted. I know how extremely lucky I am to have this freedom. I do not take it lightly, or for granted. However, I did not feel a sense of happiness, or pride after voting. I felt sick to my stomach. I do not like any of the candidates. It is one thing to vote for the person that most closely aligns with your beliefs (which still does not feel right to me since I do not completely agree with them so in turn I do not support them), but it is another thing to vote for someone that you think is the least horrible of the options.

What is flaw in our system, that is supposedly supposed to be the best, allows for such unideal people to be the faces of our country? To be the leader of an entire population of complex thoughts and ideas and priorities and emotions? Why do we so willingly feed into this?

I wrote this right after I voted:

Voting for the lesser of two evils continues to feed the system that needs reforming. Politicians are narcissists by nature, so why do we allow society to spoon feed us the idea of freedom of choice when our government is a mega marketing corporation playing the game of perception?

Are there worse systems?

Yes.

Does that mean we should settle?

No.

Will we continue to?

Probably.

I am impatiently, but hopelessly, waiting for the day we stop framing ourselves through the narrow lens of party affiliations and instead practice civility under a single roof of humanity.

…

I have no idea what changes need to be made to our system. What I do know is that changes do need to occur, and that none will happen if we keep playing into the idea of "freedom to vote", as we have done for so long, and will probably continue to do for the rest of time.

Haha.