Make Your Choices

Whatever your vote, or lack of it.

Today is Election Day here in the US.

I cast my vote yesterday, for Chase Oliver & Mike ter Maat. They are the Libertarian candidates for President & Vice President, and personal friends of mine. I realize they’re not going to win. That’s not why I voted. They are the best option on the ballot, to me. They are the ones who actually fit my beliefs the best. That matters to me.

I understand that I have friends on the left and the right who feel this was a wasted vote (or worse). They feel that I should’ve chosen their preferred “lesser of two evils”. Friends who feel that this is “the most important election ever”, as I remember it was in 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004… I was saying it alongside you in 2004, before I could even vote (I turned 18 in 2005). I remember feeling so sure that if the American people re-elected Bush after he started the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, America would crumble.

Maybe it did back then, and we just started noticing it recently. I don’t know.

I know that I’m fucking tired of this political system. I’ve been a third party activist for two decades, and was probably most strongly solidified as an anti-war Libertarian while watching Colin Powell make the fraudulent case for military action in Iraq in 2003. I've been involved in politics ever since.

I have worked on countless Libertarian campaigns from municipal to federal offices, and some Republican and Democrat ones too - sometimes the other parties have someone halfway decent, and I like to encourage them in a particular direction. “Halfway” is quite the literal term there.

The Libertarian candidate is never perfect. I couldn’t even bring myself to vote for Barr/Root in 2008. Johnson (2012 & 2016) had his missteps in both runs. Jorgensen (2020) had hers. Chase isn’t perfect. There are things I wish he was better at articulating. This would have happened with any candidate the LP could have chosen.

There is no perfect candidate, because our candidates are humans, with flaws and missteps and weaknesses and even ideological failures.

I know that of the available candidates who are actually on enough state ballots to theoretically be able to achieve an electoral college victory (however slim the chance), the Libertarian candidate is far and away the BEST possible option for what I want for this country. How I want the Overton window moved. What I believe in.

It makes me sad to know that this candidate will not win the Presidency this cycle (barring a miracle), not just because I dream of the day when Libertarian ideas are given their chance to shine, but also because the other two candidates (and their running mates) are so absolutely abysmal in every possible way.

Trump and Harris are not “the same”, but they’re both dreadful, sometimes in similar ways and sometimes in profoundly different ways. I couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for either, and I envision terrible things happening for this country (and the rest of the world) no matter which one is elected (albeit, DIFFERENT terrible things depending on which wins).

I realize that some of my friends think the world/society/democracy is going to end as a result of this election. My friends on the left reference concentration camps and death squads and Handmaid’s Tale. My friends on the right talk about the death of free speech, re-education camps, opening the doors to endless immigrants and lawlessness, and never having a fair election again. Both sides think the other is basically going to seize power and never give it back, and kill all the “wrong thinkers” on the opposite side. 

They’re both so absolutely sure. I’ve heard compelling arguments on all sides regarding specific elements of policy (or pardons) - not compelling enough to win me over to a vote, but if they’re both right, we’re pretty well fucked. I believe they’re both a bit wrong about some things and a bit right about some things, but it feels like nobody else seems to have any doubt about how right they are. Nobody’s willing to listen to any conflicting information about their preferred candidate either.

• “Trump will free Ross Ulbricht“ but says he wants the death penalty for drug dealers.

• ”Harris will end the war in Gaza” but will continue providing weapons to Israel.

• “Trump defends free speech” but wants to ban flag burning & let RFK Jr ban pharmaceutical ads on TV.

• ”Harris will legalize marijuana” but will continue the rest of the failed drug war, and literally locked people up for drugs.

• ”Republicans just want abortion to be a state issue” but they go after FDA approval of mifepristone & misoprostol.

• ”Democrats believe in my body, my choice” unless you don’t want a vaccine.
  

It’s demoralizing and heartbreaking to see how angry so many have become and how much hatred and vitriol is thrown around towards others. Here’s the thing - we all have to live with each other after this election is over. I realize some people literally don’t think that’s true, but I promise it is. We have to learn how to peacefully accept transfers of power and brace ourselves for the inevitable bad policies of either side, and work to counter them. 

As I look at this clusterfuck of an election, I really do empathize most with those who opt not to vote at all, because why legitimize it by participating in it? I get the argument, particularly from a moral anarchist perspective.

But so many people decide not to vote because they don’t care at all, and my issue is that I care too much. I don’t want my opinion lumped in with the people who genuinely don’t care at all. People don’t look at the numbers of non-voters and go “oh these people cared so much they refused to vote for the available options”, most assume “these people didn’t care at all so they didn’t bother to vote for any of the available options”.

I care about the ideals I believe in - liberty for all - and that’s economic AND social liberty. 

That’s the right to put whatever you want in your body (like drugs) or take whatever you want out of it (like a pregnancy). That’s the right to decide to marry someone of the same or different gender, decide how, when or if to start a family, to change your body to match who you feel inside, or to keep ALL of your paycheck, to try whatever medical procedures or medicines you and your doctor feel are necessary without government interfering (and to refuse them as well!), defend your family with a gun, educate your own children, start your own business without excessive regulatory & licensing burdens, employ an immigrant, not get harassed by police officers, not have your property seized by the government, and not pay to drone bomb hospitals and children overseas. To keep a goddamn squirrel. All of these things matter to me (and that list is not exhaustive).

The Republicans and the Democrats haven’t earned my support because they don’t hit enough of any of these. They haven’t earned my vote, and I get bombarded with “a vote for a third party is a vote for whichever candidate I hate most!” and it’s such fucking nonsense because:

1. A vote for my candidate is ONLY a vote for my candidate and does not increase the vote totals for any other candidate and

2. If you want my fucking vote you have to earn it by deserving it - none of the terrible candidates presented by the Democrats and Republilcans, not Harris or Walz, nor Trump or Vance, have records or promises I could in good conscience vote for. If you genuinely want my vote, PICK BETTER CANDIDATES.

If I couldn’t vote for a third party candidate and was forced to pick one of these horrible people I literally just wouldn’t vote, because it feels so morally bankrupt to consider these as acceptable options. I refuse.

And I get that friends of mine who aren’t Libertarians feel differently. And some friends of mine who are Libertarian feel differently, and I get that a little bit less, but I accept it, and we’re still friends even though I think you’re making a crappy decision. I understand that some of you in swing states think it matters, and I’m not going to waste my time trying to convince you otherwise - it’s your vote, your choice, your conscience. The same as it’s my vote, my choice, my conscience. I can’t give it to the duopoly. I just can’t.

I don’t suffer under the delusion that my candidate will win today, but I do believe that one of the others will win, and the American people will lose either way, as they do every election cycle. And we’ll move on. We’ll survive. 

Hopefully more and more citizens will hold ANY politician’s feet to the fire, hold them accountable and keep demanding things be better than they are.

I hope that my friends on the left, if they get Harris/Walz, that they keep a critical eye and hold them accountable for necessary changes. Biden’s term was disappointing (if I’d had any hope) in numerous ways but specifically the lack of spine from the left on holding him accountable for bad policy.

I hope that my friends on the right, if they get Trump/Vance, stop carrying water for the abuses of his administration and if & when Trump fails to do what he’s promised to do when paying lip service to Libertarians, you stop being so goddamn gullible and naive. (I genuinely hope I’m wrong about his promises - I really want to see Ross free).

I’m exhausted by this election cycle, which to be fair, never really ended during the 2016 election. It’s the same monster, bringing out the worst in everybody. It’s a hate sale.

I want something so much better than this for all of us.

So I made my choice. A vote for hope. A vote for actual changes. A vote I can make and not feel dirty about afterwards. I voted Libertarian, as I do - the party I've been a lifelong member of. The party I'm a Lifetime Member of. And slowly, each cycle, we get more votes. And I feel good, knowing how many people voted like I did. Who stood up and said “I’m paying attention, and I don’t like the other options. THIS is my choice.”

No matter how exhausting this political environment is, or current events are, in general, I’d still rather live in this time than ANY other time in human history. There’s so much possibility on the horizon. There’s so much that can be done, and so much has been won on this journey already.

I believe (apparently unpopularly) that the future is bright, and that politicians are generally the ones dampening the sun. So I try not to invest too much of my hopes or dreams in them or their actions, and I try to avoid them generally as much as possible.

I’ll wake up Wednesday, regardless of who wins, and I’ll keep making my life as good as I can, and I’ll keep fighting for a better future for all of us, through my volunteerism, activism, work, philanthropy, writing and more. 

I’m not naive enough to assume the results of this election don’t matter, because they do, and truly either Harris or Trump’s success will have terrible consequences for at least some people - people here at home and people abroad. I am told regularly that I have tremendous privilege as a hetero-passing white woman of reasonable means, to be able to “waste my vote”. 

We’re Americans - we have PROFOUND amounts of privilege as a nation, and you just need to take 30 seconds to look at coverage of what’s happening in the Middle East right now to know that. We get to worry about the price of gasoline or whether we’ll have access to medical care our ancestors couldn’t imagine, while others fear losing their families to predator drones and military strikes often using US weapons, living with no consistent access to clean drinking water. There’s a woman in Iran who was recently arrested for stripping off her hijab and the rest of her clothes. She may be another Mahsa Amini. 

Freedom requires constant vigilance on the things we’ve won here, but when things seem like they’re falling apart around us we need to gain some perspective. The lack of it is making us anxious and depressed and perpetuating the problems even more. 

I can’t live in fear of those things, I have to keep trying to make something better. I have to keep working for better options, for better opportunities, for better policy, and for better methods to make it so that the results matter LESS. We need to breathe and work thoughtfully to stop reacting so hard all the time, to stop simply deconstructing everything, and to instead figure out how to build and make a better future.  

My vote matters, in that it’s one more voice saying “I’m paying attention, and I want something different. I want liberty.”

If you’re still undecided at this point, and you’re looking to make your vote matter, I can tell you that a vote for Oliver/ter Maat matters to me, and they’re on the ballot in 47/50 states (you can write them in on the others). If you’re so inclined, I would be grateful if you would join me in supporting them.

I won’t unfriend you if you don’t. I don’t hate you if you choose someone else. I am still your friend, or neighbor, or casual internet acquaintance. I won’t let a difference in vote come between us - the stakes are high for all of us, and we all have different priorities or pain points, different fears. I can’t tell you what to care about most.

I want us to have better hopes for each other.

I want so much better for you, for me, for us. For US.

Thank you.