Making my Vote truly Count

I have been voting  Democrat since I began to vote at the age of eighteen. For years I have voted for the likes of David Dinkins, Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton (Senator of N.Y) Chuck Chumer, Barack Obama, and for the past Democratic primary I cast my vote for Bernie Sanders. Yes, I proudly cast my vote for Sanders, and not the woman who may become our first woman president Hillary Clinton. 

At one time my vote would have gone to Hilary with no questions asked. In fact when she became a New York Senator I voted for her. And when she was running against Obama in the Democratic ticket in 2008, I voted for her.  Then I voted for Barack Obama. I never regretted voting Democrat. I could never vote Republican. While most people I knew where willing to be neutral between the two parties, I never liked how they operated. Known to be the conservative, God fearing, family values party, certainly didn't make sense to me, when all they ever want to do is hurt the poor, by voting against everything that would help keep families together. And that's only one example I'm putting out there. 

I won't get into that now, but the Democrats haven't been much better, even if  they're not as horrible. Meaning the lesser of two evils. The less of two evils. What does that mean? Two evils. The less of one is still evil. For as long as I've been voting this is the mentality I have been voting with. To vote for an independent is throwing away my vote. When I decided to vote for Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton, I was already hearing how a vote for Sanders is a vote for the current Republican nominee Donald Trump (at that time it was seen as a vote for the Republican that became the nominee) since Bernie was not nearly as well known or the established politician that Hillary Clinton is. It didn't matter that Sanders is a Democrat himself, he had no chance to win. At least that's what went around.

Despite the talk or the lurking danger of a Trump presidency I still went with Sanders. He didn't win, and right now it doesn't look like he has any chance of being the Democratic nominee. Hillary is the likely nominee, and I don't think I will be voting for her. While I am proud at the thought of having a woman president, Hillary is not as progressive as Bernie Sanders. There are too many issues with her, perhaps not nearly as much as Donald Trump, but at the end of the day, she is part of the two party system that I have become totally sick of. As a voter I want to have more options to vote for than Democrats and Republicans. The two parties and are alike in too many ways, while not accomplishing everything for the people that vote for them. For example we still have problems  like homelessness, poverty, missing children, veterans not being helped, etc. 

We continue to have discrimination, pollution, and now thanks to Donald Trump more proud racism than ever. (We can't blame him for the racism it's always been there, but we can blame him for spreading the hate we have been seeing)  If we ever needed a chance for a third party or at least the chance to vote for a third party that time is now. If Bernie Sanders would only run as an Independent regardless of which party he chose, I would vote for him with no problems. The other name I'm considering is Jill Stein from the Green Party. She's the closest to representing what Bernie Sanders stands for. I will likely be voting for her though I will take more time to explore my options. 

Unfortunately, I'm already hearing that a vote for any Independent candidate will be a waste of my vote. Or how a vote for someone like Jill Stein may as well be a vote for Trump. It's all the same old thing. The same thing I heard years ago when Al Gore ran. I may have even heard it during Bill Clinton's campaign. It's ridiculous. No vote should ever be considered a wasted vote. And how have we become so brainwashed where we feel that our votes must be cast only for the big two party system? For one we hardly get a chance to explore other options since the big time money and corporations will only give their money to the big two. Some Independent candidates are lucky just to get on the ballot much less on the ballot for all 50 states. Of course not all have the money for commercials (though Ross Perot did in 1992 and managed to get 20% of the vote thanks to the exposure he managed to get) but more than anything the mainstream media is not fully interested in getting behind a candidate that is not supported by the corporations that keep them in power despite how the people vote. We just saw that with Bernie Sanders. And horrid a president as he would make in my opinion, one of the reasons people may want Donald Trump is because they see him as someone different than the usual.

Ignorant as that choice may be, people do want change. So why not look to the Independent candidates for some option? What would happen if millions of Americans were to vote for the alternative, and not feel that they must vote for the lesser of two evils? Imagine that. Just remember that no vote can ever be a wasted vote. The only wasted vote is the one that is not cast.