Thoughts on Voting Your Conscience
Every day of late it seems like I come home and stew about everything I’ve seen on the news, fractured only with moments of hope courtesy of the Keepin’ it 1600 podcast and Michelle Obama existing. Part of the reason for this is because not only am I am political nerd, but I work in an office where the conventions are not just water cooler talk, but actually influence our business model. Another part, is because every day on Facebook I’m bombarded with a monotonous amount of political posts that I admittedly contribute to.
There is a brand of political poster these days claiming to be “voting their conscience”, that I face with particular ire. While this group contains multiple genders, I’d like to take a minute to point out the hypocrisy of the White-Male-Straight-Vote-Your-Conscience-Voter.
Have you ever heard of “White Feminism”? No? Well it’s the idea that there is a brand of feminism that exists, think Taylor Swift or Lena Dunham’s Girls, in which gender equality is triumphed for members of society that fit the standard societal norm of female. While I momentarily wished I was one of the leggy blondes* running around in matching bathing suits in T Swift’s backyard on the 4th of July, my better judgement tells me that presenting the Swift Squad as the barometer for feminism glorifies a white centric culture that sometimes implies, and often outright asserts, that white skin and a slim figure is the most desirable physical aesthetic. This is far from a kind of feminism that I want to be a part of, and there is a phenomenal article that outlines why more articulately than I can.
What does White Feminism have to do with the White-Male-Straight-Vote-Your Conscience-Voter that’s aggressively telling me to vote for either Dr. Jill Stein or Gov. Gary Johnson? Well, White Feminism is the failure to acknowledge that women’s issues and women themselves are not one dimensional. It is the failure to acknowledge that sexism impacts everyone differently. Similarly, a Donald Trump presidency would impact everyone differently. A Donald Trump presidency has a radically different meaning for a white male than it does for a black male, or a white woman, or an immigrant, or a member of the LGBTQ community, etc.
I’m so tired of white, straight, college educated men, imploring me to vote for a candidate that has next to no chance of winning, but whose inevitably failed candidacy if given enough traction could guarantee a Trump presidency. If you think that Gary Johnson or Jill Stein can actually win, you are sadly mistaken, and given the fact that the demographic I’m referring to are college graduates or college students, I’m guessing that you know that already. Thus, I can only assume that you are willing to exercise your freedom to vote for a third party candidate and sacrifice your ability to claim you did something to stop Donald Trump from being president.
As white males with college degrees or eminent degrees, you will not be the ones that feel the burden of a Trump presidency. You will not be told that your value is determined by your “look”, or that you should be deported and “go out of our country”, or that your legitimate protest movement is “looking for trouble”. You will not feel the effect of making less than your coworkers because god forbid you have a uterus, you will have no trouble marrying whatever woman you love, and you will not feel the dangerous sting of racial profiling or the threat of deportation (shall I go on?).
In other words, you can afford to throw your vote away this election. Some of us cannot. I, as a white woman, am privileged too, and know that there are others whose lives may be impacted even more painfully by a Trump presidency than mine. It is because of this knowledge that I will be casting my vote for a candidate that I believe will not only save our government from a mockery of the gravest degree, but will fight to change the status quo that renders some Americans less than others in the eyes of the law.
Today I had to walk past larger than life size posters of purposefully disturbing images showing mangled babies that littered Farragut Square and haunted my lunch break. The posters were part of an outreach campaign for a woman who upon hearing me voice my discomfort to my friend on the phone, told me that I needed to “find Jesus”. It is people who would have you believe that abortion is murder and the laws of Christianity are those that should truly govern our nation that will have the ear of the party in office in a Donald Trump presidency. The Republican Platform states “that man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights”. I’ve read the platform cover to cover, and it terrifies me, as I’m sure it should or would terrify those White-Male-Straight-Vote-Your-Conscience-Voters who claim to stand for equality.
In selecting a candidate, and being passionate about our views, we can’t shirk our responsibility to pragmatism. White feminism neglects the very real differences in ways that women, and those who identify as women, are affected by sexism. Voting for Gary Johnson as a white male progressive who claims to be a true supporter of equality is akin to a similar, and tragic, disconnection with reality. How can you not care what will happen to those that don’t share your privilege if a Trump presidency were to actually occur? I think that voting your conscience, should mean something else. It should mean voting to ensure the safest and most prosperous America possible, an America that Donald Trump doesn't believe in, and that will be dangerously out of reach if we give Donald Trump an even remote chance of winning this election. It is too critical. I’m with her.
*(For people invested in the Swift Squad, acquiring Ruby Rose as a member/guest/attendee/”friend” at the annual 4th of July gathering does not count as being intersectional for reasons the aforementioned article explains)
