The Absurdity of Voting

January 12, 2019 at 11:40 am (Screeds)

Written Jan. 12, 2019…

I would never tell people who to vote or not vote for. Nor would I tell them whether they should vote at all. That’s up to them.

But I do believe that voting has become mostly a waste of time and energy. When I hear people say that we need to vote out all the bad politicians, all I can do is laugh. We vote year in and year out and nothing ever gets better. In fact, it just keeps getting worse and worse. You can’t simply vote out corruption. The establishment has rigged the entire system in order to make sure that you can’t just simply get rid of them. Our system is so thoroughly corrupt to the core that you can’t fix a completely broken system. People keep living under the illusion that we still live in a democracy, where we hold legitimate elections. The 2016 Democratic primary proved that voting doesn’t matter. The DNC staged a coup for Hillary through their constant rigging and cheating. The establishment still pretends that she won legitimately. So does the person whose supporters were cheated. And many of those supporters also think that next time will somehow be different, even though nothing has changed.

Do I believe the same thing will happen again in 2020? There’s not the slightest doubt in my mind. Unless we start seriously calling out election fraud, it will just keep happening in election after election. And our taking part in this charade just gives legitimacy to a system that is completely illegitimate. And it solves nothing. I guarantee the next president of the United States will be another pro-establishment neoliberal disaster.

We also have to take into account that millions of American voters (whether they are conservatives, centrists, progressives, or libertarians) constantly keep voting for the lesser of 2 evils, and then cannot for the life of them figure out why things just keep spiraling further and further downwards. They are perfectly content with accepting crumbs that politicians throw at us, and don’t seem to demand more. They will vote for politicians that take money from special interests, and then wonder why those politicians are not working on their behalf.

We also need to get away from this “cult of personality” obsession we have with politicians. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Trump or Bernie or Hillary or Obama. Once people fall under their spell, they start suffering from cognitive dissonance. These politicians can do no wrong in their eyes, no matter how many things you point out to them that prove they are not really who they claim to be. Just like when people choose a party to vote for, they just vote blindly for that party forevermore. It doesn’t matter if the party no longer stands for anything they claim to stand for themselves, they just keep voting for them without question. It gets to be about nothing more than “we gotta beat the other team.”

I think politics has become a complete joke in this country, and so has voting. Am I saying I’ll never vote again? No, but I seriously have to question the sanity of it, and whether I want to keep engaging in this endless charade.