democracy (n):

a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

Sigh.  Well, Bernie’s back in Burlington, much to his relief I’m sure.  If he doesn’t travel to Philadelphia again any time soon, I sure wouldn’t blame him.  A few of us know what that man put himself through for us, for our country.  I know.  My family knows.  History will know.  Everyone will eventually know what this kind, brilliant, honest man put himself through for us all.  And what an incredible, historic, tragic opportunity was squandered in his campaign’s failure.

So now it’s Trump or Die time, I hear.  I hear it a lot, actually.  Loudly.  “Vote for Clinton!” “The End is Nigh!”  “A vote for anyone but Clinton is a vote For Trump!”  “You’re either with Us or against Us!”  And so forth.  And the fear of Trump is understandable – he’s an irrational, unqualified, narcissistic, sociopathic asshole who has no business setting foot anywhere in this nation’s capitol, let alone in the White House.  The Republican Party has absolutely, finally, lost their collective minds, and there is some small consolation in recognizing that the Republican leadership is completely losing their shit right now.  I detest Donald Trump – I fear a Trump presidency.  I would never, in a million years vote for a guy like Trump.  But I won’t vote for Hillary Clinton either.

Aaahhh!  Panic!!  If you’ve ever seen the Aardman movie Chicken Run there’s a scene with a bunch of chickens running around knocking things over, screaming and trampling each other.  That’s how Clinton supporters just reacted to my last statement.  Stating that I won’t for Trump or Clinton just freaks Clinton supporters right the hell out.  When I mention to them that I’m going to vote for Jill Stein, they somehow visualize me with overalls and a cheap red hat, knocking on doors for Trump and beating up Mexican-Americans.  Sigh.

Frankly, I feel the same kind of paralyzing disbelief when people tell me they are voting for Clinton.  Especially when they mention how much they love Bernie in the same sentence.  How sorry they are he didn’t win.  Really?  No, I mean really?  I realize there is a lot at stake here, and that there are a million issues stories and histories spinning around the media and internet, but . . . really?

Let’s imagine for a second that we live in a democracy, where “we the people” elect fellow citizens to go to Washington D.C. to represent us in governing our country.  Now we all know that over the years the folks we have been sending to Washington have increasingly been “representing” the big money interests who fund their campaigns, not so much the “we the people.”  And finally, in this 2016 presidential primary campaign we find out, conclusively and definitively, that the campaign was rigged from the start, which means no one’s vote actually mattered.  The DNC merely allowed Sanders to participate in what was an illegitimate election whose winner was determined years ago.  My vote did not count.  Neither did anyone else’s in the Democratic primary, because once the fix is in, and any one vote is found to be illegitimate, the election is skewed, and all bets are off. So I ask this:  if we don’t have a vote, is this truly a democracy?

Don’t call it a “protest vote.”  I protest with words.  I vote with my hopes, my principles, my ideals.  We all only have a finite number of votes in us.  If a person lives to be 80 years old, they will have had the opportunity to cast 15 or 16 votes for president in the general election.  That’s really not many, when you think about it.  And it’s none at all if we do as we are told election cycle after election cycle, and “hold our nose and vote the lesser of two evils.”  Really?  Does anyone actually think that’s how a functional democracy works?  Voting for not-quite-as-bad evil time and again – hoping your evil prevails?  I made up my mind a while ago, long before even Bernie Sanders threw his hat in the ring, to never again vote against anyone.  To never vote strategically, or for the only candidate I thought “could win.”  Because when we vote that way, we are playing their game.  We are being manipulated, plain and simple.

Us vs. Them.  Fear vs. Hate.  Black vs. White.  North vs. South.  These divisions serve Them perfectly.  Every time a rift widens between two segments of the American population, the ruling class laughs.  Keeping the population divided and scared is keeping it under control.  And yes, there is a “ruling class.”  You can call it the “1%” or the “corporate elite,” the “oligarchy” or just the “rich bastards who really don’t want you to succeed to the point that you become a threat to them.”  But it is Us vs. Them.  The working class vs. the corporate elite.  And our government has become the corporate elite, bought and paid for.  Dick Cheney is the corporate elite – he was CEO of Halliburton before he became Vice President.  He helped start a war while in office that enriched Halliburton by billions of dollars.  Then, when his term was over, he took a board seat with the company and laughed his ass off.  Hillary Clinton is corporate elite.  She is a card-carrying, 5-star penthouse-traveling boardroom familiar, who has been purchased by every major corporate entity currently threatening our democracy.  She is absolutely everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party, and with our political system today.

TRUMP!!  Someone just yelled that as I was briefly criticizing Clinton.  I have a really difficult time finding any Clinton supporter who’s willing to elaborate to me what it is about her character or her platform that so appeals to them – without them mentioning Donald Trump.  He’s a maniac, yes!  I think there’s an excellent chance the man is actually clinically insane.  And Democrats can’t stop talking about how terrified they are of him.  He is an absurd individual, and the fact that someone so unstable and entirely unqualified is actually in the running is something none of us have ever dealt with before.  And that’s frightening.  The things the guy says are outrageous.  Truly unbelievable.  Very, very hard to believe.  There are plenty of folks, most recently Democratic congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who maintain that Trump is a plant, a phoney, a tool Clinton is using to facilitate her ascension into the White House.  Although this sounds fantastic, it isn’t very hard to put together an argument supporting this theory.  The friendship between Trump and Bill Clinton.  The phone call between the two immediately before Trump declared his candidacy.  The very generous donations Trump made to Hillary Clinton’s senate campaigns, and her failed 2008 presidential campaign, and other generous donations to the Clinton Foundation.  The list goes on.  And it would explain Trump’s absolute bat-shit crazy behavior and his attempt to alienate at least half of the Republican base.  We’ve already tumbled way down the rabbit hole this election, so I am truly convinced just about anything is possible right now.

I mentioned earlier: Us vs. Them.  Fear vs. Hate.  Fear has become the operative word.  Fear is government’s absolute weapon.  Division and fear keeps a population complacent, submissive and subject to whatever propaganda the government dreams up.  It is a formula used by governments since the beginning of government.  People won’t discuss Clinton’s copious failings only because they are afraid of the uncertainty Trump represents.  Hillary Clinton has the second-lowest favorability rating of any presidential candidate since they began polling.  She is surpassed only by Trump, who proudly holds the lowest rating.  Ever.  Clinton wouldn’t stand a chance against pretty much any other Republican candidate they could throw at her.  Trevor Noah of The Daily Show had it right when he pointed out that both Clinton and Trump are currently running against the only candidate either one of them could ever hope to beat.

One other discussion I do not see covered in the mainstream media at all has to do with this:  what happens to Trump’s supporters if Clinton manages to beat him?  All we hear about are the racist assholes in wife-beater t-shirts that read “F’ Islam!” drinking warm cans of Coors Light in the parking lot before going into his rallys to beat up protesters.  But just like every movement, there are rational, intelligent, pissed off people mixed in with the nutjobs.  Folks that have legitimate concerns that Trump is somehow speaking to, in his weird way.  The Trump phenomenon had more in common with the Bernie Sanders movement that way than either camp would like to admit.  This has most definitely been an anti-establishment election cycle, and yet I have people screaming at me in a capital-letter frenzy “YOU MUST VOTE FOR CLINTON!!”  But if we vote for the most “establishment,” corporatist, corrupt Democratic candidate in modern history, what happens to the millions and millions of Americans who are literally screaming out for radical change?  More than anything else going on right now – THAT scares me.

So don’t call it a “protest vote.”  I don’t want either one of these horrible people representing my country, representing me.  I can’t bring myself to point out either one of them to my children as their possible president.  Trump is an asshole, and most kids could figure that out for themselves in five minutes.  And sure, Clinton is headed for that “glass ceiling,” but I don’t want her to serve as a role model for my daughter.  In my opinion, if Clinton achieves the presidency, she will provide such a poor example that good women, worthy of the office, won’t be offered opportunities they deserve for a long, long time.  Giving “any woman,” a push just to achieve an admirable goal, when she doesn’t deserve it, cheapens the achievement in the end.

Don’t call it a “protest vote.”  Jill Stein offers a clear, humane option to help lead us out of this dark, disastrous mess.  I’m not going to turn this into a campaign plea for Jill Stein, but if you like the idea of  stronger banking regulations, the removal of corporate money from our political process, the squashing of the TPP, strong climate action, living wage and workers rights reform, healthcare and education treated as human rights, criminal justice reforms, real equal rights for all, and an end to imperialist military interventions and never-ending wars – check out Jill’s website.  If everyone who found her platform appealing; who broke free from the manipulative two-dimensional, two party electoral prison we’ve been locked into for so, so many years; who stopped voting only based on who they thought stood the best chance of winning; who found the courage to vote their principles – for the candidate that most spoke to their heart – Jill Stein would ride a tidal wave of discontent and hope straight into the White House.  It’s right there – at the tips of our fingers . . .  sigh.