What is scarier and more bewildering than a dedicated Trump supporter voting for Donald Trump this Tuesday November 8th, is the knowledge that there are sizable populations of individuals who are either undecided or participating in some form of protest vote. The notion that someone is uncertain of which candidate they would feel confident about voting for after several months of campaigns is baffling. It is unbelievable that there are clear, self-identifying Democrats, who voted for President Obama in either 2008 and 2012, and aren't either registered to vote or are thinking of voting for a third-party candidate.
Why it isn't surprising or it isn't as infuriating to come across a Trump supporter is the fact that the majority of openly-Trump individuals are firmly rooted in their xenophobic, misogynistic camps. This isn't to say that all Trump supporters are both afraid of foreigners, immigrants, and women, although supporting Trump doesn't leave a lot of room for doubt on those positions, but those still voting for Trump after all of the scandals and women coming out and saying that he groped them reveals that there must be a terrible struggle to stay loyal to one's upbringing or community or own ignorance and decision to remain terribly ignorant. That is why I am not as upset with Trump supporters. They are either morally bankrupt because they choose to be or are robbing themselves of ethics and decency to appease their parents, or pastor, or friends, or whatever authority figure they value.
However, the pseudo-Democrats that are not registered to vote or are planning on voting for someone other than Hillary Clinton, whether writing in Bernie Sanders or voting for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, will not only not get a pass from my condemnation but will perhaps upset me the most if and when Trump gets elected president. I rebuke anyone who is making this a protest vote because of their poorly thought out decision because while they aren't throwing facts out the window like Trump supporters are doing, they are attempting to make a rationale out of how they don't like either of the two winnable candidates. The only people in this particular bucket that are absolved are Californians and any other die-hard blue state, only because their vote is for the most part inconsequential. But my fellow Pennsylvanians, the Floridians, the Ohioans, must follow through on a decision that promotes responsibility and rationale.
This election is not a protest election. No election is a protest election when you start protesting six-eight weeks prior. You know you sound like Donald Trump when you're calling things “Rigged!” when it simply isn't going your way. You receive a blank check once every four years and you don't decide to throw it in the trash a month before. If you are tired of a two-party system driving our government, assemble and demand referendums on the structure of our electoral college, or power of third parties in Washington starting November 9th of this year, or simply get in the grassroots movement of third party candidates so that they are actually recognized and will have a fighting chance come 2020. Don't procrastinate until four years from now where you can make the same argument that holds zero weight because you feel like whining and complaining for the amount of time that an election holds any amount attention in this country. No teacher ever gave sympathy to the student that the assignment was unfair when they only began working on it the night before.
As for the bleeding-hearts that are upset Bernie wasn't the Democratic nominee are ready to throw the election because they can't have their first choice, both Bernie and Barack Obama are endorsing Hillary. Hillary is for several of the major policies that Bernie was addressing during his campaign.
For anyone who hasn't seen enough of the wild antics of the unbelievably silly and unaware Gary Johnson, who couldn't name any foreign leader anywhere, nor did he know that Allepo is a city in Syria, don't consider even consider wasting your time voting for him. Sure, he likes marijuana and is for legalization. However, besides being a seemingly uneducated, inexperienced buffoon on camera during interviews where it looks like they pulled in someone doing an improv scene, he is against most of the policies that Bernie was campaigning for, and he has no well thought out tax plan, and dare I say, knows minimally more than Trump on how the economy and our debt actually works.
This election demands rational, responsible thinking and decision making. Maybe that is why America is about to elect Donald Trump. A man who couldn't be more fit to become a dictator if sociopaths and dictators of the past and present came together to assemble all the best worst qualities of a man without a shred of compassion, integrity, and humanity. A man with more allegations against him than all other candidates combined. A man who lies without breaking a sweat, because it is second nature, because he doesn't care, and frankly, neither do his supporters. They understand that he is immoral and are still going to vote for him because we have somehow been transported to a reality that is free from fact-checking, from ethics, from rationality, from decency. Vote Hillary or assume responsibility of the consequences of electing a man that could very likely plunge America's image, reputation, and future lower in eight weeks than Bush and Cheney did in eight years.