2022 Will Be The Last Time I Vote
I've Been Voting For A Better World Since 1979, Those Cumulative Efforts Resulted In War, Poverty, and Disease As The Choices For 2022.
A famous quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
That is exactly how I feel about the 2022 midterms approach. Voting is insanity. After decades of participating in multiple elections, and enduring lectures from the elite political and media classes about responsibility, civic duty, and “freedom and democracy”, I can’t do it anymore.
Decade after decade, as The Who’s Pete Townsend famously wrote, I swore, each time I voted, that “We Won’t Get Fooled Again”. The iconic song by The Who was one I first heard as a pre-teen, and which I loved for the Rock and Roll power chords and incredible energy. I was way too young to understand that the lyrics were the channeled frustrations of an aging musician who saw exactly the same thing going on in his native Britain, and, perhaps, internationally. The song wasn’t about the civilized, orderly transfer of power as much as it was about earnest citizens, frustrated with the lack of political progress, resorting to revolution, only to find that the “New Boss Is The Same As The Old Boss”. So it is in 2022, only worse.
Ironically, this is exactly what we need, exactly at this moment in time: a revolutionary movement and/or a revolutionary leader with spiritual and moral empathy to energize people and unite them in taking back power. At the very least, an attempt by the populace at self-defense in order to keep billionaire capitalism from stripping every last vestige of the planetary resources, including people, for profit. Sparks of hope toward this end are evident in the formation of Unions within corporations like Amazon and Starbucks. It’s the powerless and nameless rising up against the powerful and demanding recognition, a living wage, and decent treatment. To cease being labeled as “Human Capital”. These movements, unsurprisingly, are seeded and grown organically, on the ground by word of mouth. None of this was achieved through voting.
Representative Democracy is an amazing ideal in theory, but in practice, especially in America, it died decades ago when big money and powerful people, lobbying, and corporate influence became the sole beneficiaries of the allegedly “valuable” attention of Congress and State Legislators. Consider that, despite the last gasp efforts of media practicing journalism and actually holding powerful people accountable, Insider Stock trading is more prevalent than ever.
I remember the exact moment, and the very last time, I felt a sense of deep alarm and urgency about voting. It was watching the slow-motion horror show, the chaos, the violence, and the authoritarian crackdown that was surrounding the Black Lives Matter protests. It was seeing a teenage Kyle Rittenhouse roaming free to kill whoever he deemed a threat with police approval. Finally, it was seeing the terrifying but, somehow comically ludicrous image of Donald Trump holding a Bible amidst the national chaos. Cynicism left the building to be replaced in my psyche by a sense of duty to stop the chaos. It was reminiscent of the racial strife and police turmoil of my childhood, like the Watts Riots, nightmarish distant memories. I saw the worst moments in History repeating themselves.
If that wasn’t bad enough, living in Florida, I and other constituents of Governor Ron DeSantis endured a long series of co-appearances, “press conferences”, and media opportunities between DeSantis and his political mentor, Donald Trump. Rather than pursue opportunities to, say, address the growing spread of COVID, or just quietly do the practical, mundane duties of governing, DeSantis flew off to Washington for important “meetings”, seemingly, every few days. DeSantis would waste no time in the aftermath of these multiple, self-created PR junkets to brag that he had “just spoken with the President”. In most cases, the business was well within the confines of Florida state interests, not necessarily matters of national concern. It was clear that DeSantis relished ambition and power, and took every opportunity possible to campaign as “future presidential candidate Ron DeSantis” on the dime of Florida taxpayers.
The harm that right-wing authoritarians like DeSantis are causing, not only in Florida, but on a national level, is well documented and profoundly disturbing. Spin the wheel of misfortune, and you will come up with GOP legislation and apathy being responsible for the rampant spread of COVID, thousands of preventable deaths, attacks on freedom of speech and thought, racial discrimination, codifying and promoting hatred towards the LBGTQ communities, election rigging and corruption, and worse. There is no doubt the GOP embraces fascist tendencies and authoritarian power structures with relish. DeSantis's latest move is gerrymandering and hiring “election police” to prevent fraud, despite the fact that no one has come forward to contest Florida election results since the Bush/Gore Presidential race.
This is the top leader of the state of Florida, literally wielding his power to cheat and deny democracy. He was cheered on by Republican sycophants at a Sports Bar, where DeSantis frequently likes to stage these press announcements to presumably appear as a man of the people.
I never was enamored of Joe Biden. I always found him to be, based on watching his career trajectory in real-time, duplicitous, misogynistic, cruel, quick to anger, and a documented pathological liar. Former President Obama was directly responsible for taking a dubious, unpopular candidate, who was barely in the running as a top-tier candidate, and rehabilitating his chances by clearing the dense field of equally dubious, but more popular choices. Ron DeSantis may be redrawing maps, but make no mistake, Barack Obama worked discreetly and manipulatively behind the scenes to remove Bernie Sanders, and by default, any support by the Democratic party, for candidates that don’t serve the interests of Corporate America, Banks, Wall Street, or the Military Industrial Complex.
So, at the moment, faced again with the “choice” of absolute chaos, division, racial strife, and unchecked COVID, with great reluctance, I marked the ballot for Biden. Like many others, who felt cornered into this gun to the head level of choice, I expected no great sweeping societal changes. Biden CLEARLY said, “Nothing Will Fundamentally Change “on the record on one well-documented occasion.
At the minimum, Biden seemingly understood that Sars Co V-2 was our biggest challenge, something that Republicans like DeSantis dismissed out of hand as no more threatening than seasonal flu. As a clownish, melodramatic denouement to the COVID media frenzy, Trump, infected with COVID, insisted on jumping out of bed within hours and riding around the Hospital, presumably to greet his adoring public. In a silly, staged moment, wheezing and out of breath, caked with makeup, but pumped full of the best treatments available, Trump arrived back on duty, miraculously cured, by Helicopter. He slowly and unstably walked up the stairs of the White House portico, and with cameras focused intently, dramatically removed his mask.
If you were a reluctant Biden voter, like me, you felt remotely comforted by the fact that Biden explicitly stated, while campaigning of course, that Trump should resign based on his COVID 19 response, as opposed to Trump opining or projecting that masks were, in fact, a “sign of weakness”. Even with the devastation COVID has wrought, by his own inaction and lack of responsibility, DeSantis has deemed masks as nothing but “Theater”.
So, it was completely unimaginable that the “lesser evil” would adopt the very same policies, but on steroids. Biden and The Democrats, with the ultimate degree of cynicism and contempt for the electorate that a party or its individual members could have, hired a polling firm called Impact Research, which literally told them to “declare victory and move on” from COVID. In a few short weeks, the thoroughly politicized CDC began relaxing masking mandates, followed by the TSA, which dropped masking requirements for travel, in some cases, mid-flight, like an Atomic Bomb. In effect, Biden has embraced the Trump policy that he had previously condemned. It’s the equal evil, not the lesser, that is now in control.
I follow a lot of kind, empathetic, but severely scared and stressed people on Twitter, including parents of children under five, who can’t get access to vaccine protection, and immunocompromised people. All of them, like myself, spend day after day screaming into the void in shock that the “good guys” could have walked away from supporting life and public health in favor of commerce. It’s as evil and sociopathic as you can get. Biden seems to be in a delirium, completely preoccupied with promoting war and muttering at a recent press conference that the choice to wear a mask is “up to them”.
If there was ever an example of a party promising more, and delivering less, I can’t think of a better example than the presidency of Joe Biden. The checklist is large: Zero attempts to reform or provide actual healthcare, leaving the unemployed to twist in the wind in a fractured economy (and bragging about it), declaring “No Federal Solution” for COVID mitigation, defunding testing sites, vaccines, and boosters, letting inflation and supply shortages rip through the nation with the same abandon that COVID is and currently, prioritizing the preservation of the American petrodollar.
If you absolutely refuse to think critically, the current narrative provided by the Biden administration is comfortable to embrace. It feels good to lean on a narrative of absolutes, where Good is the US and NATO, and Evil is Putin. The US, NATO, and Zelensky play the role of superheroes pursuing democracy and freedom, and Russia and Putin are the ultimate EVIL, hellbent on destroying all that is good in the world and killing innocents along the way. It’s comfortable, but it’s a child’s view of the world. No one with humanitarian impulses guided by morality can approve of Putin’s actions, but Biden has attributed, to a ludicrous degree, Putin’s malevolence as being responsible for all the ills in America and the world.
The truth is nasty and uncomfortable, but it follows a predictable pattern that the US has pursued for decades: hegemony and military conquest on multiple fronts in order to pursue power, wealth, and resources. I always found it a bit curious that Biden had pursued a relatively quick and immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left its own dire consequences, but in the context of recent actions taken by the US in Ukraine, it makes sense: the troops that were withdrawn in Afghanistan will likely be fighting alongside the Neo Nazi Azov Battalions in the evilest and most ironic historical twist.
Think about it.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin AND Secretary of Stae Anthony Blinken BOTH “secretly” visited Zelensky in a friendly get-together of mutual support, with no intent or purpose beyond that, is as maliciously deceptive as it gets in narratives. Clearly, they are amping up for a hot war, fighting Russia from Ukrainian territory and preparing for US direct involvement and escalation. This, despite saying there would be no boots on the ground in Ukraine. Any remnant of modern Russia and Putin must be destoyed. We hear that he is on the ropes and bleeding.
Likely, despite the widely ignored truth that the US has been preparing for this war in stages, most people will continue to believe that importing a steady stream of weapons costing billions to Ukraine from the US alone will keep the war at bay despite Biden’s enthusiastic support over the course of his career. It’s a fantasy and a very dangerous precursor to possible nuclear conflict.
So, in November, I am making one last stab at using my voice to be represented in this nightmare. That’s it. We need such complete and radical action that slow walking incrementalism and thoughtful deliberation aren’t a choice. It’s like a futile gesture, but I think of it as one last fight to defeat atrocity. I know it’s bleak, and not hopeful, but I’m tired of practicing insanity at the voting booth. I’m too old for this shit anymore.
Breaking: 4/27/2022 I mentioned the struggle that low-wage workers face, how, without power, they are rising up to demand a living wage and human dignity. This morning I see another spark catching in the Union wildfire. Name ONE politician in any legislature standing against the threats and intimidation of these workers.