Why I "Wasted My Vote"

As a young millennial born barely before the turn of the century, I have spent the majority of my life resigned to surveying the unfolding political landscape from the sidelines.  I will celebrate my twentieth birthday this year, and thus for most of the elections to date, I have been only an observer.

That changed this year.  For the first time in my relatively short life, I was legally eligible to cast a vote for the next President of the United States.

I threw that vote away.

As we're all well aware, the recent election featured Hillary Clinton as the representative of the Democratic Party, and touted Donald Trump as the dark horse of the Republican platform.

In the course of the previous election cycle, I was told the same thing repeatedly, over and over again, literally hundreds of times after taking into account conversations in person, over text, and through social media: Donald Trump supporters insisted that refraining from voting for Trump constituted a vote for Clinton, whereas liberal Democrats assured me that refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton equated compliance to or support of a Trump administration.

Let me make myself explicitly clear: I entirely, forcefully reject these notions as preposterous, inaccurate, and unfounded. 

Let me tell you what a vote for Clinton is: it's a vote for Clinton.  Want to know what I consider to be a vote from Trump?  Voting for Trump, that's what.  You can fool with the math and you can play the semantic games of political pedanticism, but at the end of the day, the only thing I consider to be a vote for either candidate is a vote for either candidate.

Allow me to repeat that, because I think it's important.  There is only one course of action which embodies a vote for a political candidate, and that is an active and intentional decision to cast a vote for said candidate.  Anything short of that, ranging from public endorsement to confused indecision, is NOT a vote for that candidate.   

That isn't an opinion, it's a fact.  

This is because, at the end of the day, there is more to voting and the process of democratic republic representational government than math equations and two-party politics.  I am not here to vote on the premise of numbers or to select a "lesser of two evils".  My obligation and civic duty is to cast votes based on moral principle and personal conviction.

The very concept of the "refusing to vote for my candidate is a vote for the other candidate" argument is constructed on the presupposition that I will be voting on moral principle and personal conviction; it is a statement predicated on the idea that the opposing candidate is so unbearably awful that I should be willing, for the sake of absolute good, to make some sort of moral sacrifice so as to prevent such despicable evil holding power in office.

Here's a question: if I am to vote in consistent accordance with principle and morality, why vote for a lesser of two evils when I can choose not to vote for evil at all?

"Vote for the candidate that's better for the country." But what if I don't believe either candidate is better for the country?  "Vote for the candidate that's less offensive, more tolerable, and the most morally justifiable." But what if I don't think either candidate is less offensive, more tolerable, and the most morally justifiable?

And what if the candidate whom I purport is better for our country, less offensive, more tolerable, and the most morally justifiable is the candidate whom you stringently oppose?  Would you still encourage me to vote that way?  Or do you only encourage me to vote that way under the assumption that I will agree with your moral absolutions and conclusions?

This election cycle, it felt as if I couldn't make an acceptable decision at all.  Refusing to vote for the Republican branded me the unpatriotic enemy of conservatism; a traitor to freedom, to the founding ideals, and to the Constitution of the United States.  Refraining from voting for the Democrat labeled me a racist, misogynistic, bigoted, angry traditionalist who needed to get with the times and embrace progress.  I couldn't win.

While I refused to vote for either candidate, I am none of the aforementioned things.

And why would I vote for either?

I understand that there is no such thing as a perfect and completely ideal candidate, but certainly, there are those who would be much, much closer than those we were proffered in the course of the previous election cycle.

Trump's constant insistence on America's need for an outsider and a newcomer smacked of pathetic desperation; as if he were utilizing his inexperience and paucity of knowledge as a tool to his advantage.  It offered new incentive in political selection: incentive to vote for a man who had never before held any sort of office and to treat the White House and the highest office in the land as a learn-as-you-go employment opportunity.  Sorry, but that's not how politics works.  

Why would I vote for Donald Trump, a man whose brilliant economic successes are mingled with gross mismanagement and negligence in addition to outright advantageous swindling?  A man who publicly and graphically brags about his sexual conquests and endorses violence and disorder at rallies and campaign gatherings.  A man who claims Christ and yet has never felt the need to ask God for grace or forgiveness.  A man who seems to embrace and endorse dangerously nationalistic ideas and tendencies, and who restricts government agencies on the basis of the fact that he does not agree with their conclusions and findings.  A man who is selfish, narcissistic, crass, and who reverts and resorts to childish ad hominem attacks and mockery.  A man who lacks integrity and character, and who seemingly possesses no aptitude for fluent articulation, displaying all the eloquence and tact of a peeved first grader.  A man who, in theory, proudly embraces Constitutional law and process, and yet spits in the face of legislation and precedent when convenient.  A man who proved to be on the fence about many key platform issues, shifting positions and then shifting again purely for the sake of political expediency.  A man who attained a degree of political success simply by tapping into oft misdirected and misunderstood anger and prejudice.

And yet my ardent distaste for Donald Trump did not compel me to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Clinton's continual reference to the election of a female head of state as the "highest, hardest glass ceiling" was absurdly historically inaccurate, and offensive to Americans and to women everywhere.  It offered a new incentive in political selection: incentive to vote FOR a woman simply BECAUSE she is a woman to prove that we CAN.  Sorry, but that's not how politics works.  Such unabashed sexism not only fails to encourage me to vote for the affiliated party, it goes as far as to discourage me from doing so. 

And why would I vote for such a woman?  A woman who illegally received and subsequently erased over 30,000 emails, and who literally hid a hard drive in a remote apartment bathroom and ordered multiple cell phones be destroyed with ball pein hammers in order to cover up her multiple felonies (FBI investigated and confirmed, by the way).  A woman who conspires fiscally under the table with foreign governments and enemies of the United States by skirting American law and overtly disregarding and breaking financial legislation through a money laundering and unspeakably corrupt organization.  A woman who lied through her teeth to the faces of the American people for weeks on end in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Benghazi that claimed four American lives.  A woman who blatantly and unashamedly subjected the victims of her husband's sexual abuse to public humiliation and destroyed the lives of those deemed a threat to her political success.  A woman who has demonstrably lied repeatedly under oath regarding foreign policy and about her record and tenure as a Senator and Secretary of State.  A woman who supports the virtually unrestricted practice of federally funded abortion on practically any grounds. A woman whose unstable stances on key issues have conveniently shifted with the fast-moving and ever-evolving tide of society and culture.

If my vote for the evil that YOU so despise puts blood on my hands and responsibility on my shoulders, how can you expect me to choose your candidate; a candidate which the other side proclaims is as evil or even more so? Either way, I am guilty of a supposed massive political sin. So why vote for either?
This decision was not a result of disillusionment with the "real world", nor was it indicative of a self-righteous and holier-than-thou perspective. It was a matter of moral conviction. The truth is simple: if I believe neither is superior in policy or principle, I vote for neither.  Accepting the status quo, choosing from the lesser of two evils, and proceeding per the norm of the conventional two-party system (a system rejected by the Founding Fathers, and one which has historically resulted in corruption and schismatic national division) is not how this nation was founded, nor is it how the country has made significant advances. I refuse to adopt an either/or mentality.  

Additionally, I dispute the claim that a write in vote is less participatory and effective. Such assertions are based off of a math game, and if one wants to go by the math, every last individual vote cast meant next to nothing. They did not alter the outcome. They were, as singular units, so infinitesimally small that the difference in the effect they may or may not have had is virtually immeasurable. Trump won my precinct, and this would have occurred with or without my support.  I could have voted for him.  I could have voted for Hillary.  I could have committed fraud and cast three, four, five, twenty votes either direction, and it would have made no difference. People want to go by the math: by the math, all votes are equally worthless. To this, the general response is "but if everybody thought that way, nobody would ever vote".  I'd like to counter: if everybody thought this way, maybe we'd have actually have some meritorious options and wouldn't be suffering under a flawed two-party system which continually yields candidates who are both underserving and unqualified.  That's why I don't go by the math, but choose to reject the conventional two-party system of failure in favor of my moral convictions and stances. I was given a choice: two candidates who, at the end of the day, came down on the side of excessive and unrestricted government, regulation of the private sector, restrictions on rights and freedoms, and economic and foreign polices that are neither American nor Christian.  Two candidates who simply were not reflective of what I feel we need in a Commander in Chief.  I chose neither.

You may disagree with my evaluation of either or both of the candidates.  That's fine.  Here's the bottom line: I wrote in the name of Rand Paul because he, more than anyone else, tends to reflect what I believe is good, true, and right.  He generally embodies ideals and principles with which I agree both morally and politically.  I voted for them because I didn't feel guilty doing so.  I voted for him because I felt convicted to do so.  I voted for him because I wanted and chose to.  

I'm not asking you to agree with my choice in candidates, nor am I entreating you to vote for them at my request.  What I AM saying is this: I expect to be respected regardless of the candidate for whom I voted as well as the candidates for whom I did not.  I didn't vote for Clinton.  I didn't vote for Trump.  I didn't waste my vote.  And I'm not apologizing.