Monday, July 25, 2016

Spoiler Alert!

Ok, so this week might be kind of rough and not just because of the fart-in. It's the Demo-huh? No, we're not talking about the fart-in again. Here, click on this if you're that interested. Anyway, this week is the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and not everybody is, you know, together on the whole Hillary Clinton thing.
Above: Bernie Sanders, taking one for the team.
Yeah, but you'd feel a little worse if
Trump won, right? I mean, c'mon...
Take for example Dr. Jill Stein, who's running on the Green Party ticket and hoping to sway some disaffected Bernie fans over to her side. Now you're probably asking yourself: Holy shit what is she doing? Here's what Stein told NPR:

"Put it this way, I will feel horrible if Donald Trump is elected, I will feel horrible if Hillary Clinton is elected, and I feel most horrible about a voting system that says: Here are two deadly choices, now pick your weapon of self-destruction."

-Dr. Jill Stein, picking perhaps the
worst possible time to make a point

Ok, so she's not wrong about the dangers of our entrenched, de-facto two-party system and the way the Democrats and Republicans have carved up the American electorate between them leaving no room for a viable third party, but do we have to do this right now? 
I'm just suggesting that we shouldn't underestimate the ability of conservative
white people who feel underappreciated to make disastrous choices. 
Yup, forever. I have a hard time
committing to new glasses, so
tattoos kind of blow my mind.
Dr. Stein is not delusional, she knows she won't be President but the hope is to get at least 5% of the vote which would put the Green Party on the ballot next time and that would be great, but it's just...Look, I get that it's easy for me to say this because I like Clinton and Sanders and if he won the nomination I'd totally be voting for him. Maybe I'd feel differently if I were a fervent Green Party fan or if I got a Feel the Bern tattoo and am now realizing that that'll be there forever, but since the two-party system isn't going to be crumbling anytime soon, could we maybe, I don't know, suck up and deal for one more election? You know, this is kind of a thing. The race I mean. Sure, it's early, but somehow Clinton and Trump are like super close in the polls which is befuddling since Trump is like, objectively terrible. 

And here we are, the candidates are neck and neck and I'm not saying that we shouldn't all vote our conscience or vote for the candidate we think will be the best choice. There's no such thing as a spoiler in a democracy, the votes belong to whomever has won the voter's support. But five percent might make the difference between a moderate Democrat and a Republican so rabid-foam unreasonable that Ted Cruz can't bring himself to get behind him. So let's just all think really hard about what we're doing.
I don't mean to imply that this was all Ralph Nader's
fault, but that 2.47% of the vote might have come in handy.

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