We’re about a year out from the 2020 presidential election. Having lived through the 2016 election and the myriad e-slap fights between the people who voted for Bernie Sanders or abstained and the Hillary supporters, I feel like it’s not too early to express my desires for next year’s campaign and election cycle.
I was hoping to wait until the Democrats had decided on a sole candidate but something deep inside me feels that we need to address this now and probably have a couple of review sessions in 2020. With that said, I present to you the top 3 things that I DO NOT want to witness during the 2020 campaign season.
- Using living or dead ancestors to berate people who have decided to abstain or vote for the candidate you don’t personally care for.
Listen. We ALL know that our foreparents fought wars, died, starved, bled, etc. for our right to vote. African-Americans especially know because some of those people who went through all of white people’s bullshit to gain basic rights are still alive and kicking and have told us the stories. There’s really no need to finger-wag adults and try to use the fact that our grandparents had to sit at the back of the bus to guilt someone into voting.
Although we may not agree with someone’s decision to not vote, it is THEIR decision, just like it’s OUR decision to exercise our vote. We can bust out 9837573 reasons to vote, and they can likely bust out the same number of reasons to abstain. And even if they cannot, it remains their option.
And just to be petty for a minute, we do a whole lot of shit that our ancestors would frown upon but we’re grown people who deserve to have our agency respected regardless. It’s okay to be not okay with people abstaining. It’s not okay to be not okay with people exercising their choice.
- Arguing with people about what they SHOULD care about when selecting their choice of candidate.
Just because you think free universal pre-k and all-genitals welcome restrooms is important doesn’t mean that everyone else does.
Trust that people can prioritize their concerns just like you did. I’ll be open and say that I don’t plan on voting for anybody who is too far left or too far right. I think that because of the climate on social media, there are candidates who are publicly applauding shit they don’t actually support (which is a huge part of politics, I get it).
Those candidates may not get my vote.
On top of that, arguing with someone about what should be important to them seems like more of a waste of time than contacting PayPal customer service. You can argue with me until you’re blue in the face, I don’t give a fuck about you wanting to smoke weed legally. While I think it’s stupid that weed is considered a Schedule I drug and it’s wasteful that people are doing major time for it, I don’t require a promise of legalization of it from a candidate to support him/her.
In short, you chose your hot buttons; let others choose theirs.
- (If your chosen candidate doesn’t win) Arguing why it’s everybody else’s fault for not voting for your candidate of choice.
We saw a lot of this after Hillary lost to Donald Trump for several months after he was inaugurated.
Hillary supporters blamed Sanders supporters for either not voting for Hillary, voting for Trump as punishment, or abstaining altogether.
It was one of the most entertaining displays of crying over spilled milk I’d ever seen.
But it didn’t change the outcome and here we are, three years later.
I have no issue if you want to be known for your advocacy of a certain candidate or like to engage in intellectual chow-chow with your friends (or foes) about political strategy. But, the hostile back-and-forth with the opposing teams after the race has been decided? Let’s not.
I understand that politics is a hot topic but if the 2016 outcome taught me anything, it’s that some of you need a triple latte, a colonic, and a reality check – severely.
Let’s try to be and do better this time around regardless of what party with which you affiliate yourself.