Democracy is Dead!?
a compilation and evolution of my personal struggle with American politics in 2024 in diary-entry form
January-February 2024ish
We seem to be in a perpetual cycle of “Oh it can’t get any worse”, even as it continues getting worse. Since the 2016 Presidential Election, we have been on a downward spiral in American democracy. This is not to say Obama and Romney were great guys who were squeaky-clean candidates (no such thing for a president), but at least there was some dignity between both candidates. Obama and Romney were both competent men and people had to evaluate their platform rather than if they would die in office. The American government has always been a joke of a reality TV show that we have pretended to take seriously.
But there is something eerily sinister about this election cycle. There is a conscious decision to disregard the voters’ demand for a new presidential candidate that is borderline undemocratic.
Joe Biden and the Democrats have been aiding a genocide for the past four months and are expecting votes. Along with Biden being older than desegregation, he isn’t implementing the policies he had promised during his campaign. You could blame the stagnancy on the polarization in the legislature, but, overall, both the left and the right have little to no faith in Biden’s ability to continue as a president, which scares me because the alternative is Donald Trump: An insurrectionist, dictator, racist, misogynist, and rapist among many other things. With 10 months to spare, I am getting nowhere close to a voting decision.
A March Manifesto
Condescending and patronizing. That is what the Democratic Party is after they fully decided that Joe Biden is their nominee for the 2024 Presidential Election. The Democrats could have run a rock against Biden in a primary and the rock would have won.
Regardless of his unpopularity, in 2020, Biden’s reason for running for president was marketed as “I’m doing this so you have an option that’s not Trump.” The collective on the left thought this meant his presidency was merely a means to an end—a snack to hold you over until you get your meal. The promise of a Trump-free four years superseded the desire for someone better.
So, after the claim that Biden’s presidency was only temporary, and then Biden’s presidency was subpar at best, the idea that left-leaning people should vote for Biden again because he is “the lesser of two evils” is not only a terrible political strategy but a slap in the face.
I refuse to be gaslit into voting for a candidate I do not believe in. That is not democracy. There cannot be a claim that people have a choice and that voting matters if the people’s preferences aren’t even considered within their affiliation.
Furthermore, I refuse to let the Democrats get away with being lazy and complacent when people’s lives are at stake. If the Democrats are poised to run Biden, they are determined to lose this election.
I am registered as a Democrat for the mere purpose of voting in primary elections, but even that affiliation makes me sick, especially considering these past four years. Part of the problem is that the left expects better from the Democrats than the Republicans. The Republicans might say the inflammatory words and do the actions, but Democrats are not stopping them from steamrolling over human rights.
They didn’t codify Roe v. Wade into law when they had the chance.
They didn’t pack the Supreme Court to prevent a super-majority of conservative Justices from bending the law to allow Republicans to get away with whatever legislation they want.
Project 2025 is already in motion.
They are continuing a genocide in the Middle East.
It’s like the Dems are waving a treat over our heads, telling us to “sit, roll over, shake and”, say “good boy!” after they’re voted into office and then not give us the treat of real democracy.
I am enraged. I know there is always more to lose, but right now, it feels like whatever loss to human rights that Trump threatens is inevitable. Why would I continue to vote for a false solution?
We have become too complacent with our voting habits. Voting must mean more than just going to the polls: It is a culture. It is a conscious choice that we actively make. Democracy is not just a procedure.
We have been tricked into believing that our options are limited. Living in Plato’s cave allegory, where we are the prisoners captive to the manufactured flame of the two-party system. There must be a widespread effort to break free.
Every election year, people who opt to vote third-party are told, “You’re throwing your vote away. You are basically voting for the other side”.
We must squash that mindset to break out of the two parties that hold our votes hostage. If you vote for a third party, you are voting for whoever you voted for. Period.
Our votes are a form of activism. If you are dissatisfied with the candidates presented on the majority party ballots, show them. The threat of a third-party surge should scare your affiliated party enough to give you a candidate you believe in.
This rhetoric is also for Republicans: if you’re mad that your party is running Donald Trump: a felony and alleged insurrectionist, you should vote for someone you believe in, rather than giving in to the pressure to vote for the chosen candidate. There has to be an active decision from the voters to start breaking free from the two-party system.
“Aw man, Biden lost :( Will you give us more money so we can take back power for the people? :3” – a political ad I presume in 8 months.
Trump and His Puppets Point to the Scoreboard:
Oh boy. We are cooked. The Supreme Court decided that the president is a king who can do anything if they do it in office. Trump’s insurrectionist defenders can claim this was a hoax to take down their precious hero: the only savior American democracy has left.
And this is why Trump’s Supreme Court nominations were the most devastating action in his presidency. He has set a legacy in the Courts to forgive any action he has ever done. This precedent gives Trump the legitimacy to defend what should be considered treason.
This decision could easily be used in the Democrats' favor, but they are playing the “No, we have to be better than them” game. Like honestly, we need some people willing to bend the rules the same way the Right does. Presidential immunity should trigger a signal in Biden’s head to start signing executive orders because there is no such thing as presidential overreach now. I’m guessing his brain is scrambled from all the molly he’s taken.
The scrambled brain was evident during the presidential debate. Not only did Biden show himself as more incompetent than previously thought, he made Trump look coherent, which is like, crazy because Trump speaks in sentence fragments and uses the same vocabulary level as my five-year-old nephew.
Nonetheless, Trump’s posse gets to point at the scoreboard every time Biden makes himself look bad or the Supreme Court pronounces Trump’s innocence. It feels like every argument you present against Trump is met with “Well at least he’s a patriot who is free from accountability because the Supreme Court said so”. And it’s like, yeah, the Supreme Court ruled that but does it mean it’s ethical or correct? It’s a circular battle, that you can never win. Painstakingly frustrating and an uphill battle I’m slowly giving up on.
All I can do is thank God I’m having an election party so I can forget the day that will change American democracy forever.
Post-Kamala Decision Quandary
I am torn. I do not know who I will vote for in November. I was set on voting third-party for the last few months, but now I really don’t know what I’m going to do. What should have been an easy choice has been muddled into a grey paste you can only make when you mess up a recipe so badly.
Conflicted. That is what I’m feeling. While I don’t expect much from the Democrats, I feel like they dug themselves into a hole that gives them less than four months to convince people to vote for Kamala Harris. Out of spite, I want to vote for a third-party candidate just because there was not an option to choose Harris as the presidential candidate.
But realistically, I know spite is the worst way to vote. Yet, I sit here with 3 months to make a choice.
August 1, 2024:
I have made up my mind (I think), but I will be keeping my vote to myself for the element of suspense because I believe you should make the choice you feel most comfortable with. Also, I don’t endorse any candidate, so #nofreepress
Voting is activism. It is representation. It is one of your political outlets. I urge you to vote in the way that will best represent you. Your vote should not be molded by people telling you who and who not to vote for. Your vote should represent what you want.
But voting must be more than every four years. If you are a proponent of voting third-party, you should be voting with that preference in state and local elections. To break the two-party system, we must vote with our true preferences. Intentionality and consistency at every level must be pertinent to our actions.
Furthermore, if you vote Democrat, you should not be voting “Blue no matter who”, because the title of Democrat means nothing at this point. Be conscious of the fact that Democrats are rarely your friends either. In a highly polarized political climate, yes, Democrats align more with protecting marginalized rights.
However, political parties prey on your fears. They prey on the fact that you are desperate enough to vote for them. As we’ve seen throughout this year, the Democrats tried to prey on our fears of Trump returning as the president, running Biden and hoping we would be complacent enough to vote him in again.
But, as we’ve also seen this past month when we collectively threatened our vote, we checked the government into doing what it was designed to do: work for the people.
It is hard to believe that a vote matters at times. It is more difficult to think that the government cares about you. But if democracy is to live, the only thing that can sustain it is the widespread belief that things will change.
In an era of disconnectedness and individualism, elections must not divide us more than they unite us. The collective is not a monolith, but rather a heterogeneous mixture of people and ideas focused on leveraging the present to improve the future.
We have power, even if they tell you we do not. We have to because we must. There is no option other than unrelenting perseverance toward progress.