Filthy American Here!

 Yes, I know, the main blog is from the UK and I'm a no-good redneck trying to interject in political discourse, how dare I? Well, I find that the people in the worst crap tend to be best at describing the smell. And boy am I surrounded by... well I'll try to keep it civil at least. This will be my intro post to this blog and more of an overview of how I see this topic overall. We'll get into the nitty-gritty later.

So what party am I? Eh..... If I have to choose from the available options here, I'm Democrat. If I had my way, I'd remove any party affiliation at all! Where in any other part of life are we intentionally narrowed down before getting to choose. There are plenty of times we narrow our own options, whether it's choosing a restaurant by budget or choosing purchases by brand preference. But in those options, it's our choice to narrow the options. 

In American politics, we pick the party that is the least repulsive to our ideology, then that party decides who we get to vote on, and then we vote for the primaries. Nope, that's not the ACTUAL vote, that's the vote on WHO TO VOTE FOR! Why? Heaven forbid 2 members of a party run for president, lest one of them suck! 

Now imagining a vote with more competitors sounds like trouble with our electoral system since they have to win a certain number of votes. Having more competitors means more split between the votes and no one wins right? Those of you in the UK or one of the other countries with ranked choice voting already know better. Ranked voting is a simple system that allows for a much more accurate representation. Below is a video that explains the system well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z2fRPRkWvY

So what does this have to do with my party? Well, the simple fact is I don't like many democratic candidates. From what I've seen, they struggle to put their ideals into actual action. They focus so much on being politically professional that they forgo speaking their minds and promoting good information to their citizens. 

Many of them struggle to agree with some of the common sense policies that are considered relatively "left" in the US, even though they would be centre or even right in some places in Europe. But they aren't willing to be tough on an implementation even when we do agree. But since I'm further left than most democrats, being a republican is obviously off the table. 

So what do I do? Well, I have to mark myself as a Democrat. No independents ever come even close to gaining hold here, so that's a wasted vote for me. It's not really wasted because if more people stopped thinking it was a wasted vote, independents could win. 

But right now, I can't worry about the long-term ideal of an independent who more closely matches me (which also is rare, btw). I'm too busy making sure I pick democrat so I can vote in the primary and have a chance at a decent choice in the actual general election. Did I vote Trump in 2016? God, no! Was Hilary someone I wanted to represent me? Also no. But the voting system in America often leads to a choice between the lesser of two evils. I don't like my party's choice, and I certainly don't like the other team's choice. So I pick the less sucky option. 

Can you begin to feel why Americans have an issue with voting apathy?

Even when I'm a middle-class white American with privilege, I still don't feel my vote is entirely impactful. I still don't believe fully in the candidates I pick. And that's not even considering how many politicians talk about ideals and then do none of it in office. The American voting system is not held together by the desire for a good candidate, rather it subsides from a fear of bad candidates. 

I am not purely a Democrat, I am an American, with my own beliefs and ideals that cannot be summed up by any party currently available, even among the ones that don't have a chance of winning. I am an American, but if I want half a shot at even getting to choose between an acceptable candidate or not, I have to register with the government under a label that does not describe me. I want to scrap the whole system and start fresh, but I'll let you guess which party will be the first to allow themselves to disappear. 

With love and insanity equally,

J.M.