Election insights

​What this election tells us most of all, is the amount of frustration people have living in an unjust system. 

DNC supporters will blame it on the 3rd party voters. No. It’s your own fault for being so corrupt. You will be broken apart. 

Many leftists say that this shows how racist and bigoted America is. No. This shows that the same neoliberal, capitalist policies that hurt the global south also effect and hurt Americans. This shows how frustrating the high rates of job loss and identity loss are. Trump was always a populist candidate. 
What else it shows is that we failed. We failed to reach out to those communities and build solidarity. Instead we focused on calling them racist and bigoted. Burning those bridges in this era of public shaming and call outs. 

Many RNC people say look we won. Understand you’ve taken up a large responsibility. You hold the president, Senate, and the house. If you don’t deliver, it’ll be the end for you as well. 
Most of all, this is probably the most honest vote cast in a long time. Obama tricked us, Bush did too. But we know exactly what we are getting in trump. And we voted for him. This reflects honesty. 
It also speaks volumes on the moral decay of our society. All of us who follow the individualist religion have a hand in that.

Voting 3rd party matters.

Realpolitik. A system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological consideration. This is an important and one of the valid approaches to making the decision to vote. After all, why vote for a candidate that has no chance of winning when one can influence who the next president will be.

I get it, we want to be on the winning team. That is identity/class/tribal instinct. It allows us to make move forward as a collective. But it can also blind us to alternatives and our own limitations. Well, as it turns out, our votes don’t influence anything practical. The status quo right now ensures that no matter which party wins, the people lose.

It is imperative to our survival that we understand this reality. This retrospective study by Princeton University shows public opinion has “near zero” impact on U.S law. It also shows that U.S law and policy are directed by corporations and industry. Moreover, we must also understand that if we live outside of a few swing states, our votes do not matter. Thanks to the system of  the electoral college, it does not matter if I vote Democrat, Texas will endorse Republican, and hence my “vote” will also be Republican. It is also established by political scientists that we do not live in a democracy at all. We actually live in an oligarchy. A system where a small group of people or organizations control a country. These reasons are sufficient to establish that our votes for the two parties do not matter.

How do we break this cycle of losses? Well, that requires us to look beyond the tribal politics and disunity the oligarchs have embedded among us. There are many things that we can do, such as running in local elections as independents and staying true to our convictions. However, as far as this election cycle is concerned, we can make our votes count as well. The way to make them count is by voting 3rd party or independent. As previously established, a vote for either of the two parties is a vote for the status quo of oppression. But a vote for third party speaks volumes. That vote brings national spotlight to alternative candidates who are not beholden to the oligarchs. Enough popular votes casted outside the two parties of the oligarchs can even break the status quo.

One may say that we will need a lot of 3rd party votes for that to happen. I agree. But big change is possible even with a small number of votes when it comes to third parties. Only 5% of the vote is needed to qualify them for public campaign funding assistance. That opens up their doors for the future. The current situation is also one where none of the votes matter. So, practically speaking, realpolitik, take your chances with the bleak hope of 3rd party over the hopelessness of the status quo.