Though the 2020 Democratic campaigns have barely begun, I feel it’s important to express my frank outrage with the way the field is shaping up. With the few announced candidates and the swirling rumors about potential campaigns, I’m already fed up with the Democratic party, and I plan on letting them know that when I get to the ballot box in a year and a half. So in 2020, as I did in 2016, I will be casting a protest ballot. The Democratic party needs to know I’m upset. But unlike in 2016, when I voted for my boy Gary Johnson, this time I plan on really sending a message. I’ll be voting for incumbent Donald J. Trump to show just how far left I really am.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. As a straight, white, male, do I really stand to lose anything if Donald Trump is somehow elected again? Not really. BUT! I do stand to lose something if an embarrassing old Democratic fogey is elected instead. That something? My pride. You see my conflict now.
And don’t tell me the Democrats are offering up fresh, young, exciting far-left candidates. They’re not. Kamala Harris? She’s a cop! (According to the Twitter handle of someone who gets retweeted into my timeline a lot, anyway.) And Beto O’Rourke? Maybe he was fresh when I first started hearing his name, but now he gets talked about so much he’s as warmed over as a cool bowl of porridge. How do I get it through the thick skull of the Democratic party: I DO NOT WANT PORRIDGE IN THE OVAL OFFICE.
Even my beloved Bernie has betrayed me. Turns out he’s just as hypocritical as the rest of them! He promised to upend the establishment and stir the pot! But I’ve been following him closely, and I’m sad to report that he… let me check my notes here… ah, right: he has been “showing up for work” and “sitting at his desk.” Showing up for work?? Sitting at your desk?? With a white supremacist in the White House? Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. You were supposed to be different.
I can tell you’re a little confused as to what the point of my protest vote is. When you’re as far left as I am, it can be hard to decipher what my actual philosophy looks like. So here’s a helpful breakdown of what the political spectrum really looks like:
- Far Right = Nazis
- Right = Doesn’t Exist
- Moderates = Worse Than Nazis
- Left = Doesn’t Exist
- Far Left = Just me and six of my friends
So you can see, it’s my responsibility to ensure that a moderate like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or Hillary Clinton doesn’t get into office. Remember when Hillary told us to “Pokémon Go to the polls”? God, I sometimes still wake up in the night, teeth clenched, rage-screaming into my pillow thinking about that. Yes, I know Trump is keeping kids in cages at the border. But what really makes me mad is the Pokémon thing.
And as far as my six friends, I can’t be seen as less progressive than they are! My friend Jacob was musing the other day about casting his 2020 protest vote for a possible Republican primary challenger, like John Kasich! God, now that’s progressive!
If I’m seen as less far left than my friends, I’ll never live it down. And the number one red flag that marks you as not truly far left? Sincerity. To paraphrase Malcolm X, if you don’t stand for something, no one can be smarter than you on Facebook.
Is it so much to ask for radical, sweeping, overnight change? I realize that several of the Democratic candidates are campaigning on free college and universal healthcare for all. But none of them are campaigning for free college and universal healthcare for all overnight. They’re suggesting strategies for working within the confines of Washington to produce gradual results over time. Um, sounds a little MODERATE to me, doesn’t it??
And I don’t want to hear any nonsense about “electability” or “appealing to the fly-over states.” You don’t need votes from people in the midwest! If a candidate can garner the support of me and my 1,156 Twitter followers, I would think that should be more than enough to take the win! I think the importance of fly-over states in an election are overrated; I’ve never even seen a farmer on Twitter.
Consider my case closed. If the Democrats really want my vote, they need to produce a candidate who appeals to my ideology, which is at best VAGUE and EVER-SHIFTING. Until then, I’m a proud member of team #FuckTrump/#Trump2020/#MAGA*
*- The “again” is ironic, in case that wasn’t obvious.