Disclaimer: Do not try and persuade me in either direction, because it's not going to work.
Another disclaimer: I will not try to persuade you in either direction, because it's not going to work.
If you had told the founding fathers that one day we'd be traveling in boxes that can move up to 100 mph or that we would possess little 4 inch devices that allow us to communicate with anyone in the world at any given time, they would have laughed in your face and made their slave hands call the witch hunters. The advances that we have made as a country technologically, socially, and politically are worlds different from what they used to be. However, political parties have been a thing since Alexander Hamilton started the Federalists in 1787, and Thomas Jefferson, having beef with those beliefs, countered with the Anti-federalists (very original) in 1796.
President Washington warned strongly against political parties, saying that they would basically divide the country in half and people would rise up against each other. Dude must have been a fortune teller on the side, because fast forward 200 years and here we still are. We no longer have slaves and we laugh at witch hunters, yet we still believe that Tom down the street is an idiot who should be burned at the stake because he clicks a registration box differently than we do in October.
Despite your feelings toward either candidate this year, you sort of have to admit it- this year's election is kind of bogus. Out of all the people in this country, we have two of the most problematic candidates to ever grace a ballot card. You might love Hillary, cool. You might support Trump, awesome. I don't care. What I do have a problem with, is hearing "I'm not going to vote because my vote means nothing" or "I'm not going to vote because I hate both of them". STOP. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200. If everyone in the country had the mindset that "my vote doesn't count" then what's the point of having a democracy?
I know we hear it all the time, but your vote really does count. And here's why:
- Someone is going to win this election, and you should have a say in it.
- Your vote means more than you think it does (because Electoral College).
- If you don't vote, you don't get to complain about how bad the president is, because you had nothing to do with who was chosen.
- Voting is your patriotic duty, privilege, and responsibility.
Despite what party you are registered for and despite the animosity you hold for either candidate, you should do your research behind both of them and pick the lesser of two evils. This is what good voters do. They are not confined to the beliefs of a political party if they think that their party's candidate is unfit for the job. Good voters know that their votes matter in the long run and they encourage others to vote. Let me repeat myself, they encourage others TO VOTE. They do NOT tell others who to vote for. That's the quickest way to pick up a counter vote for their selection. If you are shoving Trump's hypothetical wall blueprint down someone's throat, they might go vote Hillary IN SPITE of you. And if you won't shut the hell up about Hillary being "innocent" and "the emails were just a big misunderstanding" your audience will run to Trump like he's the prophesiedcoming-savior.
Encourage people simply to please, please, PLEASE do their research (and I do not mean stalking the candidate's twitter). Really dig deep and find out the truths behind the man/woman. Tell people to think long and hard about the next four years, and vote for who they find will fit the position well. Your vote might seem minuscule to you, but it really does hold weight.
But despite who gets the nod in November, united we should continue to stand.
