PHOENIX (AP) – The 2024 presidential election is drawing an unusually robust field of independent, third party and long shot candidates hoping to capitalize on Americans’ ambivalence and frustration over a likely rematch between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump.
A group of people walks into the restaurant, and you all agree to vote for a family meal so you can eat together. The choices are chicken, beef, or pork. When the rest of the group votes for chicken, and you walk out because you didn’t get what you wanted, you are the asshole.
Don’t like it? Move the fuck somewhere else and bitch to them about how you still can’t get what you want in their electoral system. Your need for instant gratification is destroying this country.
Except I don’t agree, and it’s not voluntary. I’ll be force-fed the shitty dry chicken and can’t leave or not eat it. I’d happily sit there and have the salad if they voted to have chicken, but that’s not possible here.
I would love to move somewhere else. Except even then the government of the US will have an influence on me. And it costs a ton of money to do that which I don’t have, in part because our government is broken as fuck.
And it would be awesome to have literally any gratification after 24 years of voting. Two and a half decades and the planet is still dying, education and health care are still too expensive, and the rich assholes keep getting richer at everyone else’s expense.
At some point I had to concede that voting will not provide any gratification at all, let alone instant gratification. I get shitty dry chicken, shitty dry pork chops, or shitty dry beef, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
Oh I’m sorry. I missed the point where someone held you at gunpoint and forced you to vote for a Democrat? Because from where I sit a shitload of them got together and agreed to hold a contest. The winner made it out, and the group threw their support behind the winner against the dude the other team put up. And he won.
Don’t like it? Join the fucking Republicans and vote for Trump! Go ahead! He’d love to have your support! Don’t like them either? Join the Greens! Don’t like them either? Join Cornel West! Don’t like him? Join No Labels! Don’t like them? Start your own fucking political party and register as a candidate. Don’t want to do that?
Then sit the fuck down and let the rest of the adults in the room take care of business while you suck your thumb. There’s 80 goddamned million of us who decided Biden’s the one who checks most of our boxes, for better or worse, and those of us not stuck in la la land will vote for him again, because we’re not too keen on that whole fascist hell-hole scenario thing.
I’m convinced people like you have never sat in a room with more than 4 people and had to come to a consensus decision on anything. I can only assume it’s because you’ve been shoveling movie theater popcorn and were never responsible for making any meaningful decisions, or you’re a tyrannical man-child who runs a small business like a tiny little fiefdom, or you’ve never actually had a job and have spent your whole life expecting people to give you what you want. You’re probably the dude who shows up to the fried chicken restaurant and complains that they don’t serve sushi.
Don’t want to vote? Fucking DON’T. None of the rest of us will give a shit.
So we’ve gone from “vote blue no matter who” and “Trump is a fascist we need to beat at the polls” to “Nobody will care if you don’t vote.”
I’ll admit it’s a refreshing change.
Be fair. Centrists preceded “vote blue no matter who” with “party unity my ass”.
And they’ll follow up “nobody will care if you don’t vote” with “we were owed your vote and it’s your fault we lost.”
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I don’t want a box of puppies and a winning lottery ticket. I want to not go broke on a dying planet. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask.
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“Murcuh. Love it or leave it” – Trumpist bumper sticker
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