Choices

“boomers REALLY need to leave the stage at this point”

(online reaction to biden-trump debate)

Like many Americans I am fatigued by the seemingly hopeless swirl of our recent politics. (It is stunning to me that 300+ million of us have only come up with a choice between 2 old rich white men.)

The US is able to generate so much innovation and wealth – new organizations, new products, new markets, new media content, etc. – but apparently not many new dedicated public servants who are truly trying their best to look out for the public good. Maybe potential good candidates are jaded by the system, worn down by what they have to endure, given up hope of making any real change. Whatever the issues are, we need to identify and address the problems, and soon. We are all running out of time.

The current choices are not good, and the current process definitely has room for improvement, but they’re what we have. Given the current process, it appears we have the following options:

1) don’t vote – easy for the short-term, but has many long-term negative impacts
2) vote for someone other than the 2 old white men – exercises your right to vote – expresses a voice for new options – but again, it probably won’t actually contribute to a decision other than the two most likely candidates (trying to be realistic – an alternative candidate would need 10’s of millions of voters. At this point in time in the election cycle, that is highly improbable)
3) vote for the republican candidate – unfortunately all they offer this year is an individual who is fine with lies, dictators, media suppression, unlimited debt, christian-nationalism, unregulated corporate greed, etc.
4) vote for the democratic candidate – again, may not be the best individual available but their core network still supports basic democratic processes and human rights.

So given the limited choice and the trade-offs considered, I plan to vote for ALL Democratic candidates this year, to try to push the needle back against the move toward fascism. I’m not happy about it, but hopefully it will give more time to continue work over the longer term to improve the candidate pool in ALL parties, and get back to more open, collaborative dialogs and action.

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