Hey Dummy, VOTE! A Wish {Beyond All Wishes}

I know you are busy. I know you are annoyed by the election. I know that November weather is miserable. I know you have work and the polling place is mobbed and traffic is nuts and you’re still catching up on sleep from the weekend and you live in a state that is already decided and Shark Tank is on tonight. Some of your friends would give you a pass for that, but not me.

You can do this. I believe in YOU! Grant me this one wish and vote.

Hey! Remember that time a minute ago when I told you that all you had to do was vote and we would be all good? Quick amendment: You have to vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, none of this third party garbage. And especially none of that “neither candidate has earned my vote” droopy-headed Eeyore pessimism.

Oh you don’t like a bland career politician and a xenophobic, misogynistic, potentially fake billionaire? None of us really do, but those are our choices.

There are lots of honorable people out there who would prefer that neither Trump nor Clinton be our next president, but dems (lower case d) the breaks. We live in a country with a devastatingly strong two-party system, so Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are not acceptable answers to the first question on the major scantron test we are all taking in November.

I’ll level with you. I wish our democracy was a little more democratic, or at least a lot more merit-based instead of financially-fueled. But real recognize real, and Libertarian and Green Party candidates cannot win the White House this year.

Now I am not suggesting that you give up the fight for better representation and quit trying to topple the institutionalism forever. I am telling you that your vote for Johnson or Stein is less than a flush of a toilet. It’s a spit into the Pacific Ocean.

This is not the time for a self-righteous political statement.

Join the adult table and help make a decision about our future. Liking Trump and Clinton is not a prerequisite for voting for them. Caring about any of the myriad of major election issues (minority rights, pay equality, border control, public safety, international diplomacy, abortion, the economy) is paramount to using your vote in a positive manner.

And look, I get it. No one sticks to their guns longer than I do. I’m still boycotting a popular neighborhood restaurant (Estadio, I’m looking at you) because four years ago, they screwed up my dad’s order and took too long replacing it. But, there are times to be steadfast about your beliefs and times when the world needs you to be rational.

As soon as the election ends, you can get the back that whole storming the castle thing. You’ll have four years!

If you don’t want to listen to me, if you think I am a sell-out, big government fat cat, just listen to those third party candidates. They are doing a phenomenal job of making the case for why they cannot be taken seriously. Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party is the human equivalent of an eraser smudge. The man who wanted to debate Trump and Clinton so badly didn’t know what Aleppo was, and even more recently, could not name a single foreign leader, in a nationally televised interview. What is worse, not naming one single government head in the entire world or that he tried to spin it as a positive that he couldn’t?

Jill Stein, on the other hand, is using taxpayer money to fund her campaign (yes, it is legal). So, it’s your lunch money that has helped pay Jill Stein’s way to Hofstra to be removed from campus on debate night. And to fly to the wrong city in Ohio for a campaign stop, something you can only sneak under the radar when you are polling at the margin of error.

And Gary Johnson and Jill Stein don’t want your votes because they have better policies. They are counting on your need to be different and adversarial and preying on your alternative morals complexes. You aren’t hip or interesting for casting a vote for them, you are being “that guy.”

Many, including President Obama, have said that a vote for Johnson or Stein is a vote for Donald Trump, but I don’t believe that. In this election, a vote for a third party candidate is a vote into the ether.

What it is, is a vote to stand your ground in front of an 18 wheeler barrelling down on you, without your realizing that Mack Truck will finish you off before you ever see those changes you desire.

So vote. Do it for me, but really do it for you. If Trump and Clinton are still so repugnant to you when you get inside the booth, then draw a mean squiggly face next to their name. Or pretend they are different people. Or even just recognize them for their platforms and not their objectionable selves. You aren’t casting a vote against the status-quo, you standing idly by while the status-quo continues, and removing your voice.