Snitches and Spoilers

I am, as many are, distressed with the way the campaign season is going. I have spent too much of my life indifferent to candidates. I started putting mild efforts into learning about candidates in my thirties. Now that Douglas is in the Foreign Service and I’m around more conversations regarding politics, I’ve upped my efforts.

I wrote a blog years ago about how my (your) vote doesn’t make any difference. Some were upset with me. I’m glad they let me know it. We need to learn how to disagree with each other respectfully. With that in mind . . .

In one corner, we have the “Never Hillary” people and, in the far opposite corner (much like our Senate) the “Anyone but Trump” people.

Just out of curiosity, I looked up how many choices in toilet paper we have on average when we go to the store. (It’s one of those days. It’s rainy. I’ve ironed about 20 of Douglas’s shirts, I’m into the pudding cups and it’s not yet noon.) So I figure we have about twenty choices when we go to the store.

WARNING: I’m about to say, rather write, something crude.

I want to know why we have roughly twenty choices sitting in plain sight on the shelves, advertised, marketed and tested by Good Housekeeping magazine (http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health-products/toilet-paper-reviews/) twenty choices of paper to wipe our asses with and only two promoted choices to vote for in the presidential election.

Furthermore, when Pepsi, say, comes out with a new product people are onto it. They may disparage it, they may rave about it, but it’s out there and talked about. Same for movies, Beyoncé’s newest release, the latest app for the I-Phone, (quoth the King of Siam) etcet-e-ra, etcet-e-ra, etcet-e-ra.

There are other candidates, namely Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.*  Why are they kept out of mainstream media? (I’ve heard Gary Johnson twice on Public Radio.) Who decides this and why do we stand for it? Are we actually content in ignorance?

Many people aren’t even aware that they have other choices. Many are afraid they’ll throw the election if they vote for anyone other than Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump. I’ve already been hit with this spoiler argument twice. Although I understand it mathematically, to me it’s akin to calling a police or FBI informant a snitch. Anyone who is willing to step outside their political party when casting a vote ought to be able to at least seriously consider voting for a third party candidate.

I poked around a little and found 7 recognized political parties (down from 16 in 2014). In the United Kingdom there are 16 major parties and 24 minor parties. In Canada there are currently 24 including the Rhinoceros Party, the Marijuana Party and the Pirate Party. The United States has five major political parties, though one would never know this from our media: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green and Constitution. Parties with state representation include Republican, Democrat, Vermont Pregressive, Libertarian, Working Families, Conservative Party of New York State, Independence party of New York and Independent. We have thirty minor parties including our own Marijuana Party – one I’ve not yet been invited to. We also have an Objectivist Party (based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand) which puts “rational egoism” before altruism.

I am becoming one of the many voters who will be voting against someone more so than for someone. It is unconscionable to me to put Donald Trump in the office of President. He’s too offensive and too limited in his world political knowledge. He seems too egotistical to me to take advice. Hillary Clinton has lied to us. I don’t say what I’m about to say to dismiss this: what presidential candidate has not lied to us? Until we figure out how to ban together and say no to the lot of those who lie, we are stuck with one who does. Just like we are stuck with a congress that only sometimes does its job. Hillary Clinton’s world experience as our Secretary of State is valuable. I see how Donald Trump’s business experience is valuable to the office – I remember being torn between Bill Clinton and Ross Perot in 1992 until I saw the Vice-Presidential debates with James Stockdale. I remember Ross Perot saying he’d take the office without pay; I wonder if Donald Trump would be willing to do that. Why should he, you may ask? As he so often reminds us, he’s quite wealthy already. So wealthy that he considers what his father gave him decades ago (anywhere from a million to several million dollars, depending on which story you believe) a “small loan.”

A recent quote of Donald Trump: “you’ve got to get every one of your friends, you’ve got to get every one of your family you’ve got to get everybody to go out and watch. And go out and vote. And when I say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right? Yu know what I’m talking about You’ve got to go out and you’ve got to watch.” Encouraging intimidation at the very least, violence and oppression the worst. He has already encouraged violence against Americans when he was telling an audience that if Hillary Clinton gets to pick her judges there was nothing they could do. He was telling them that they were powerless. He then slightly back-pedaled by saying, “Although, the second amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.” How anyone can see him as presidential I don’t know.

I am bracing myself for the possibility of a Trump presidency. It could oddly work in our favor. We are hoping to be posted in Russia next. Donald Trump admires Putin; keeping that enormous ego stroked could make Americans look better in their eyes. Maybe if I collect some Trump paraphernalia and scatter around our apartment, when they have their go-through, they’ll see us as harmless. I don’t know.

We may need Donald Trump as our president. Troubled people often need to hit rock bottom before they acknowledge their need for help. Our country has quite an ego. My past complaints about our government have been met with the trite assurance that we have the best government. I’ve now lived in Uzbekistan and Germany. I agree our government is better than Uzbekistan’s, but I’m not so sure it’s better than Germany’s. I’d need to know more. The gun violence in our country is out of hand and vehemently protected by a congress that is, in great part, reelected and reelected. Our debt is far greater than it needs to be. Our entertainment is laced with ‘reality’ and talk shows that pit people against each other telling the most sordid stories and hurling vulgar insults. Garbage in; garbage out, folks.

I don’t think ours is the only country with these problems; I know it’s not. It would just be nice to be a step above those countries that overspend while in debt, level extreme punishments on mild crimes and lock away criminals punitively rather than as rehabilitation. It would be nice to be around people who seek truth rather than clinging to their opinions and surrounding themselves with like-minded individuals. I don’t see those things happening with Donald Trump in the president’s seat, but it hasn’t been happening under anyone else’s leadership because it must happen within each individual. It’s something that cannot be imposed. It can be demonstrated, but then it must be followed, mirrored without the distraction of a difference of political party or religion.

*I found other supposed candidates. Ricky De La Fuente and John Wolfe – I found no website for either. Then there is Keith Russel Judd who needs his own sentence. He is a self-proclaimed Rasta-Christian who claims to have run in every presidential election since 1996 as well as for mayor of Santa Fe and governor of New Mexico, has a criminal record that involves stuff too gross to get into (I may have outdone myself in paragraph number six) and he claims to be a former member of The Federation of Super Heroes. Okay, then.