Sometimes, people ask me why I’m not a Democrat. Some folks say that by not choosing to fully support Democrats I’m letting democracy be dismantled, but the truth is that democracy has long since been dismantled. Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin: capitalism. They both support a capitalist system that requires exploitation to function (this is what I mean when I say both are the same. Obviously they differ in ways, but in purpose they are the same).

Now, that’s not to say there aren’t Democrats who don’t care, there clearly are, and I believe good hearted people join the Democratic party because they want to do what’s right.

My last Democratic vote was for Hillary Clinton in 2016. When I see Democratic accounts on Twitter claim that democracy is at stake, I know it’s not true, because the US doesn’t have a democracy, the US hasn’t had a democracy since its founding.

Even then controls were written into the system to prevent certain people from gaining citizenship despite being exploited by the system in which they lived. We called it slavery, and it still exists today though it has changed its clothes and hidden behind the robes of our legal system.

I recently came across the testimony of DNC attorneys, who made the claim that no one is entitled to a fair election, and that the Democratic Party and DNC had no responsibility to listen to the choices made by voters in any DNC primary, that the DNC could choose whom they wanted. The DNC won that case citing that they are a private corporation and don’t have to follow their own rules.

Some of you may not recall, for others, a reminder:
https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules

So why am I talking about this now? Because election season is gearing up, and I’m already seeing accounts on Twitter start telling people they have to vote for Joe Biden.

I’m not voting for Joe Biden. I’m not voting for whatever troglodyte runs under the GOP banner, either, and that’s something people have lost. They’ve become so conditioned in this country to pick from one of two “lesser evils” that they emphasize the lesser part, and ignore the “evil” part, and that holding your nose in the election becomes enthusiastic support less than 4 years later.

I remember when newspapers were saying that Joe Biden was likely going to win even if people held their nose to vote for him, to claiming that Joe Biden was the choice Democrats wanted from the start. Those narratives feed into a duopoly where nothing good gets done, but lots of horrible things can happen because there’s no mechanism to prevent it.

As I have said numerous times in my posting history, that is by design. The US system moves further right, always further right. Things FDR talked about 70 years ago, and implemented, are seen as pie-in-the-sky and “wanting a pony” today. It’s a slow process, but it is terribly effective.

So what do I do? I vote for whom I believe will do a good job on a local level. That means voting Green, usually. Sometimes I vote PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation), though they rarely make it to our ballots.

“Doesn’t that mean people don’t want them?” you might ask, and the answer is no, but even if the answer was yes, why do they get removed? The Democratic party successfully got multiple Green party ballots in multiple states rejected based on rules made by a committee of Democrats and Republicans.

Do you not see how that might be viewed as taking my voice so I am forced to choose between two evils, whether one views them as “lesser” or not?

I do not trust the Democratic party to represent my views, even if there are a handful of Democrats I find reasonable and genuine, and I do find plenty of Democratic candidates reasonable and genuine, but they’re working inside of a system that has systems in place to limit their reach, to prevent them from stepping outside what is and isn’t allowed.

That is why this duopoly needs to crash and burn. It’s also why we need to get rid of First Past The Post voting. What good is a system where almost half of the population gets dismissed?

So I just wanted to share this with you folks, and to give you a gentle reminder that appeals to vote for Biden will be met with rejection, and attempts at emotional coercion will be met with muting. I have strong reasons why I will not vote for Joe Biden, making the claim that democracy is at stake will have no effect on me.

I don’t want this to be a rerun of 2020, where people who said they cared about me condemned me and yelled at me for not choosing their preferred candidate. I don’t have to tolerate that, and I won’t. I’ve spent far too much time learning about these people, about this system, to believe the blue fig leaf is adequate to cover this country’s penchant for fascism and exploitation.

All of my love,
Me.