The case for the disillusioned vote
Don't throw away your vote simply because you're disillusioned with presidential politics. That only emboldens the worst actors within our system.
I talked to a well-respected lobbyist the other day.
They relayed a story about an engaged political person saying they weren’t voting due to Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Palestine.
It’s a stance that has merit when you consider that the slaughter is directly linked to American military aid that Joe Biden has, thus far, refused to do anything to stop. Biden’s obsequiousness has seemingly turned the hegemonic United States into the client state in the so-called special relationship.
You can only watch so many videos of civilians pulling women and children, with half their heads missing, out of hospital rubble before inevitably becoming disillusioned with the political process. Domestic policy disputes seem small in comparison.
I’m not here to convince anyone to vote for Kamala Harris, especially in Ohio. She hasn’t done anything to convince me she will be any different than Biden in stopping Israel from extracting its 10,000 pounds of baby flesh.
But I’m from the school where I’ll never log off. Because in this game, you have to know how to hate. America will be in a better place when voters realize that in a proper country, the Democratic Party would be the conservative party.
And to that end, I’m unaware of any burgeoning communist militia movement committed to overthrowing the so-called duopoly.
Voting is one of the many tools in a toolbox, but as far as I can discern, it’s the only way to defeat the Republican Party. And if electoral politics were some dog-and-pony show, then the evilest rich people alive wouldn’t be spending their fortunes trying to corrupt the system and turn everyday people against each other.
But say you don’t want to vote for Harris. Again, that’s fine. But in Ohio, there are still many reasons to vote because, as the main thrust of this humble operation will tell you, politics is much more local than the television networks would have you believe.
Look what we did just last year. In August, we defeated the Republican Legislature’s attempt to eliminate simple majority rule in statewide ballot initiatives.
For our next trick, we unwound decades of anti-abortion legislation by enshrining reproductive rights into the State Constitution.
That was all done through the unglamorous work of organizing and voting. And those efforts resulted in material gains for vulnerable populations. We went from a state where abortion was banned before most women knew they were pregnant to becoming an abortion oasis. No small thing in a state bordered by the likes of Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
This election is no different. Even if you’re not inspired by either major presidential candidate, there are still plenty of reasons to vote, which, all things considered, isn’t a time-consuming grand sacrifice to make against the scheme of your life.
Consider this year’s version of Issue 1, which would effectively end the Republican junta’s ill-gotten, gerrymandered supermajorities in both chambers of the State Legislature.
Will it usher Ohio into a communist utopia? No. But one House Republican who spoke to The Rooster compared its effect to chemotherapy on the Republican agenda.
Do you care about transgender people? Or, at the very least, do you think they should be free to go to the bathroom free of interference from the state like the rest of us?
Passing Issue 1 will temper the worst impulses of the Republican Party. It will be a win for marginalized and working people throughout the state—it’s no small thing!
The only way to enact the proposal is if enough people fulfill their civic duty and vote.
But that’s not all. It’s possible that the Democrats could flip the Ohio Supreme Court for the first time in my adult life. The State Legislature made these races partisan to try and stave off that disaster… but the Democrats are still fielding three qualified and dynamic candidates in Justice Melody Stewart, Justice Michael Donnelly and Court of Appeals Judge Lisa Forbes.
You don’t even need to remember their names. The (D) will guide you. And if we don’t vote, then the governor’s failson, the guy with no experience as a judge who earned his spot by hiring the failson’s mistress away from the court when the failson’s second marriage imploded, and three other Republican stooges will be issue partisan decrees whenever those robed perverts get a chance.
Beyond that, you have Senator Sherrod Brown. For me, I’m willing to put whatever criticisms I have of Brown aside because nothing will fundamentally change in America until we fix the Supreme Court. And say what you want about Brown, but he didn’t put corrupt clowns like Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito on the unelected wizard cabal.
Brown also chairs the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee and sits on the Finance, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Committees. If you honestly think there would be no difference for any American if we replace him with Bernie Moreno on those committees, then I’m jealous about the quality of drugs you have been able to procure because they’re obviously military-grade.
The crypto industry doesn’t feel there’s no difference between Brown and Moreno.
The industry, which backs fake internet currencies favored by pedophiles, money launderers, drug dealers and other cyber criminals, is dumping millions of dollars in dark money—unleashed by the Republican-juiced Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision, by the way—trying to convince voters that a guy who has been in elected office for the last 40 years is somehow too liberal for Ohio.
This is all without mentioning Statehouse races or the numerous bonds and levies supporting infrastructure and schools.
Staying at home and refusing to vote only helps the worst political actors. It’s a win to them when they hear about politically engaged, ostensible leftists who have gotten lost in the sauce to the point they won’t even walk to their precinct on Election Day and check a couple of boxes.
The fight is a Sisyphean struggle rolling that boulder up the hill, knowing there is no single election that will ever thrust us into that fabled communist utopia. It’s only the most consequential election of our lifetime until the next one.
But cynicism is easy. It doesn’t take much to throw your hands in the air and remove yourself from the process entirely.
It’s harder but more noble to stay in the trenches against the never-ending deluge of rich pricks trying to make life worse for the rest of us. And when viewed through that lens, then it becomes clear that voting is the least you can do for people down the socioeconomic ladder, whether they’re in Palestine or Pataskala.
Please don’t throw the opportunity away. At the very least, election day is the only time of year that these rich pricks have to stand in line like the rest of us working stiffs.