In 1985, a group of four mothers, better known as The Washington Wives, created the Parents Music Resource Center to combat the growing presence of violent, drug-related and sexual themes in contemporary music. Their campaign succeeded in creating the Parental Advisory warning stickers on CDs, and now online, that we have all become familiar with. They also created, albeit unintentionally, an initiative called Rock the Vote, which was initially created with the intention of encouraging artists of all mediums, students and young people to fight for freedom of speech by getting to the polls and voting. Rock the Vote has evolved in various areas since its creation and developed their main focus: to encourage young people to defend their rights by expanding accessibility to voter registration.

Like any high profile organization, various connotations have surrounded Rock the Vote over the past 26 years. Through the negative and the positive, Rock the Vote has been a very successful non-profit with contributions and support for The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and in 1996 they changed voter registration forever when they created both the first telephone registration system, 1-800-REGISTER and the first online registration system.

The events leading up to the 2004 presidential election surround my first personal experience with Rock the Vote. I was 11 years old, growing up in an extremely politically aware, liberal family and it was the second presidential election I remember being conscious of. My sister was in high school at the time and she had begun to form her own political opinions. My father is a city planner who's Chicago-based non-profit organization Center for Neighborhood Technology has always been politically active and connected and always a big part of our lives growing up. The TV stations were flooded with political ads featuring celebrities telling you to do your part and "rock the vote". While Rock the Vote has no official party affiliation, they have historically leaned to the left, especially in an important election for democrats looking to avoid a second term of President George W. Bush.

The party had taken a hard hit with it's loss in the historical 2000 election. Former Vice President Al Gore was up against Bush for the first time, the last thing democrats needed was another Bush in office. Despite Gore's popularity, the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky political sex scandal of 1998 was still fresh in the American people's minds and Gore, no matter his lack of relation to the scandal, was a part of Clinton's administration. Al Gore suffered a deflation in his otherwise vast group of supporters just from his affiliation to Clinton.

Ralph Nader, an American activist and lawyer decided this was a perfect moment in history for a third option, and entered the presidential race as the Green Party Candidate. Nader has run for president a total of three times, the 2000 presidential election being his second run but surely his most infamous. While he does have significant political recognition for a third party politician, the two party system is still what is considered to be mainstream politics in America and it prevailed.

Nader received 97,488 total votes and his impact led to criticism that he was responsible for Gore's loss in the election. In the end the Supreme Court made a controversial ruling that elected Bush as president despite Gore's win of the popular vote. Putting this rash decision aside, later polls showed that only 25% of Nader's voters would have voted if Nader had not run, 38% would have voted for Gore, and the rest of his voters would not have voted at all. That is around 61,417 people who would not have voted in the presidential election if there had not been a third option.

You might be asking yourself what does the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections have to do with Rock the Vote? And what does this all have to do with the current election? What does this all have to do with you? Well I'm not sure if anyone has told you, but the current election has been, for lack of a better term, a hot mess. We had what many referred to as a "dream candidate" throughout the beginning of the election and through the primaries, a major party candidate that people were actually excited about for the first time in a long time--excluding Obama of course. If Bernie Sanders' campaign taught us anything, it's that he truly understood what was best for this country. Sanders said from the beginning that if the National Democratic Convention came, and he was losing that he would not only drop out but he would endorse Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately, Bernie Sanders did not win the Democratic nomination, but he did follow through on his promise, despite criticism from a large portion of his supporters and he did this for us. The Democratic Party was divided between Clinton and Sanders during the 2016 primaries. Sanders has been in public service since he was elected Mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981 and has been an activist against social injustices his whole life. Needless to say he has been keeping track of American politics, let alone the presidential elections for quite some time. Sanders was extremely knowledgeable of the history of the country, which includes political patterns. When he pulled out of the election and endorsed Hillary, many people questioned why he wouldn't continue as a write-in candidate, especially since he is a part of the Independent Party. Sanders realizes the true horror of the possibility of Donald Trump winning the election.

According to a recent poll released by CNN on Wednesday September 14 Trump is gaining against Hillary. The most terrifying part of that is his running mate, conservative Indiana Governor Mike Pence, is considered the "sane" part of the campaign, even though he is responsible for introducing legislation to strip all federal funding from Planned Parenthood, among many other disgusting things. Luckily Obama has been making the most of his final days in office and just signed a new rule into effect that will protect Planned Parenthood permanently. According to a former staffer of Trump's Campaign Pence will likely be given the responsibilities of all foreign and domestic affairs which is actually the job description of the President of the United States.

While Hillary Clinton is not our ideal candidate in any way, despite her shortcomings and past mistakes, she is only guilty of what any run of the mill politician is guilty of. Being a politician is a complicated job and there's a lot of shady things that go on behind closed doors that we will never know about and that is just the way it always has been and most likely always will be. The difference between Clinton and other politicians that have been under the limelight of scandals is that she is a woman. Many politicians have been accused of the indiscretions that have been uncovered with her, yet they have not fallen under the scrutiny that Clinton has and that is due to hundreds of years of sexist slander.

This sexist slander includes this past week's pneumonia "scandal". Clinton critics have claimed that she is incapable of running for president because of her "impending health". If a man had pneumonia who was a candidate for presidency, would we be making the same comments? You may say that I'm drawing conclusions because I am looking for them but not that long ago John McCain, a white Republican man, ran for president who was older and who's health was "withering" but no one had a problem with that.

The point is this, it is rare that you are going to love a presidential candidate in this country. Everyone has a different opinion, including presidential candidates, and including you and me. You are never going to agree with every aspect of a candidate's platform. Yes folks, this is a "lesser of two evils" situations and please stop whining about it.

You have a right to vote for whomever you want and a third or even fourth option may seem like a way to pat yourself on the back and do your part, but what if it is the exact opposite? The problem with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein is that they may become 2016's Ralph Nader. Both Johnson and Stein have gotten people very excited and involved in the presidential election who may not have voted at all and that is amazing. However, I am weary of these supporters because it seems that the majority of them have jumped on the bandwagon only in the last year as these two candidates have been gaining some media attention. In other words, fair-weather supporters. Is the two party system we have in America screwed up? Yes. But the presidential election is less than two months away, and we are not going to break that system in the next eight weeks.

Change does not happen overnight and while some might use the argument against this that people have been trying to break the two party system for over 50 years, I ask those people how long have you been following these candidates? If you really want to make a difference you should do some research on who are the progressive politicians gaining support and recognition in America right now. One of those politicians will likely be a third party candidate in the 2020 election and they need your support now, not four months before an election.

The person who has made the most substantial dent in this was Ralph Nader in 2000. Nader's participation in the 2000 presidential election resulted in eight years of the George W. Bush administration and the much avoidable war in Iraq. If Bush, who not only had political recognition and experience prior to his campaign but who's administration was also highly experienced can cause this much detrimental damage to the country can you imagine what Trump's administration would do to this country with absolutely no political experience?

So where has Rock the Vote been this whole election? This election could have been very different if there would have been more education before the primaries, of the history of presidential elections as well as voter registration accessibility from organizations such as Rock the Vote.

There is a lot at stake in this year's presidential election if you are anyone besides a white heterosexual male. It must be nice to have the privilege of not feeling the need to vote, or throwing your vote to a candidate who statistics have already proven, doesn't stand a chance against the major party candidates. I beg these people to vote for Hillary Clinton simply in order to beat Donald Trump. While Clinton may not be great and have many flaws, she is not going to stir things up because she is very well aware of the limelight she is under already, as the first woman presidential nominee of a major party. Please use your privileged vote as a platform to help your brothers and your sisters who don't possess these privileges.