As long and drawn out as this election has been, it’s time to sing hallelujah to the Lord on high (or drink yourself silly if you’ve been anywhere near as stressed out as I’ve been through the last leg of this nightmare). Whatever happens, it’ll be done tomorrow. The future will be set on its new course, for better or for worse.
This goes without saying, but in the spirit of my absolute fear and dread, I’ll repeat it once more: you must vote tomorrow.
The United States has had a very incredibly democratic experience so far in its young life. Please, please remember that democracy is not a given, not something to be played with. All of you Bernie-or-Busters need to understand that, as the phrase goes, politics is about compromise. Bernie lost, and I admit, it’s an incredible bummer. But if you don’t move on from that, then we’ll have President Trump. The moral of the story, especially to anyone out there voting for the first time: you cannot (I repeat: cannot) split the vote. At this point in the game, if you don’t rally behind Clinton, Trump’s going to win.
If this is a hard pill to swallow—good. It should be. It sucks, but that’s politics for you. It’s difficult for many Americans to understand that the lesser of two evils can be for the greater good (or, at least, the greatest attainable good).
My second word of advice is to study up. While the president is important, that’s not the only thing that’s going to be on your ballot. Sadly, I’ve lost a lot of faith in my home state of South Dakota, and so I’m registered to vote here in New York. Unfortunately this means I was largely clueless as to who all of the candidates were. I swear, in South Dakota we’ve had the same five politicians running for the same positions since I was born. I know who’s who, I know their scandals, their positions, what they’ve screwed up, and what issues they’re okay for.
If you’re voting for the first time or somewhere you’re unfamiliar with, you can google a sample ballot. Look up the names of the individuals separately, or find videos of them talking or giving interviews. This is one of those times where I’m going to say Wikipedia is not a good enough source on its own. Find some articles from different points of the political spectrum, visit the candidate’s own website, get on Wikipedia, find the solid facts of their policy history as well as anecdotal stories—whatever’s going to help you form an informed opinion of who this person is. Hell, there’s a Voting & Elections course at Bard right now. If you can, find someone from this class to talk to; some of the candidates have spoken to the class.
This is the real life version of cramming for a test, but much more important. Be as prepared as you can be.
My last words of advice: don’t wear pro-Clinton or pro-Trump merchandise to the polling sites—it could get you in trouble. And to anyone else on Bard campus, there will be shuttles every 20 minutes from 8am to 8:30pm on Tuesday. Happy voting!
