No one to vote for? Still vote!

I’ve noted in previous posts that I will not vote for either of the potential Democratic candidates, and that I will not vote for Trump no matter what, GOP nominee or not. For many people this leads them to the statement: “of two evils, choose neither.”

This is a good concept. Today I am going to suggest we go beyond this. One way to choose neither evil is to choose nothing. But we also have the proverb: “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing.” Which is what the first statement leads us to, if we think dualistically.

And we are encouraged in the United States to think dualistically. We are a two-party system. In many areas of our lives they tell us to “think outside the box”, but one place we seldom do is politics. We have our left/right, liberal/conservative, always two poles, always duality, always held within the two parties.

And yet as those two parties become the world, a world focused on itself, the circle becomes smaller and smaller, more focused on itself, and more and more stuff falls outside its boundaries. Many are suddenly finding outside its boundaries. It can seem lonely and scary outside those lines. Yet the more we look around, the more we realize we aren’t alone. It might be just as scary, but perhaps more free.

So my encouragement this season, if you are having trouble choosing between two evils: choose neither, but choose someone. Find someone you can vote for. You don’t have to agree with all their positions, you just have to be able to agree with some, and respect the rest. There are definitely candidates out there better than the “two evils”.

Not voting is the lazy way. It tells the media and “powers that be” that you don’t care. Yet I know you really do care. Voting for someone besides the evils shows them you do care, and that you can’t be bought or cajoled to just vote for the duality, that you refuse to just take it or leave it.

Yes, the ultimate result may be that you actually have to take one of the two evils, but you didn’t aide it their triumph by doing nothing, and perhaps, just perhaps, you laid the foundation for good’s later “ultimate” triumph.

Or if nothing else, you can take the Norse perspective of Ragnarok, and fight with the gods on the right side, even knowing it means losing, because fighting for the right is more important than winning.