Image Transcription:
A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
End Transcription.
The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
If there was absolutely no chance for some one other than the two child beaters getting elected, then it would make sense. But that’s not the case for the US presidency.
Alright. Here’s the scenario.
You’re at the ballot box. It is between Biden and Trump. In this hypothetical it is so far a tie. They are neck to neck. Let’s say it is 5 mil votes to 5 mil. Either needs one more vote to win. Your vote is the deciding one to be president.
What do you do?
Refuse to vote because the right-wing bias of the electoral college would give that hypothetical election to Trump either way, just like it did in 2016.
For the sake of argument let us ignore the electoral college, in which case I would still refuse to vote since a tie must be broken by Congress in an undemocratic process that harms the government’s claim to legitimacy just like when the supreme court gave the 2000 election to Bush.
So you relinquish responsibility and defer it to another entity? One that is currently corrupt and broke, paralleling your issue with the executive office and election process.
So you’d put it up to some nebulous future decision, by another entity, with who’d be president? If Trump is elected he isn’t leaving office. We are going full fash, and people of color and queer folk will be going first. Trans people will most likely first.
If Biden wins, for the most part the status quo stays the same but we get a chance to democratically make life better. Trans people are much safer in this path, same with other marginalized folk.
With this information, would you reconsider your answer?
