It is a shame that our choices for the White House have boiled down to holding one’s nose and choosing one the perceived lesser of two evils. On one hand, there is the self-absorbed demagogue who steps in the bull flop and then puts the same foot in his mouth, repeatedly; a man who is long on criticism and so short of proposed solutions.
On the other, we are offered a career politician whose foreign policy decisions were disastrous and deadly in their aftermath, whose hubris is legendary, and whose integrity has long been for sale.
The old saw that we get what we deserve when we go to the polls cannot hold true in 2016, can it? How could any nation “deserve” either of our horrible choices this election year?
So, the argument here is basically to choose the aforementioned lesser of two evils; that a vote of conscience — say casting our ballots instead for Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein — has no value?
Perhaps, in a political economy of situational ethics, that makes some sense. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” as the idiom says.
Too many are surrendering to that idea, and I understand the frustration that feeds that assessment. But for some of us, voting for either of the major party “choices” is simply too repugnant to contemplate.
Sometimes, a few of us may even say all the time, choosing the right thing is never a waste, even if it isn’t the “winning” choice in the cynical world of politicians.
Vote you conscience.
