Election day is quickly approaching, and every passing day I feel a sense of dread grow larger in my chest. Will this be the presidential term that strips me of my rights? Will I lose access to the healthcare I’ve had to fight to secure? Will I be put in prison, held in purgatory until the state forces me to fall in line? Will I lose my loved ones to unchecked state violence?
The answer, as always, is probably not. But I can’t shake the feeling that we get a bit closer every year. When I look at the presidential candidates, I see two ideologically identical demagogues. In fact, I truly believe that the most significant difference between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is that Harris maintains a certain level of charisma that can shield her fascistic beliefs.
I’ll admit that I can fall into some more liberal-leaning tendencies. When President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, I was elated. I thought that Harris would be the one to stop Trump and his warpath. Reality quickly set in, however, when I remembered how much I hated her. At the end of the day, she’s another career politician who made a name for herself by exploiting and imprisoning millions of people. Again, I felt a sense of temporary reprieve when she tapped Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. I believe that part of me is always searching for some sense of fleeting joy regarding our current political climate. It all just feels so inescapable, and I’m finding it easier to lose myself in the mundane idea of “Democrat good, Republican bad.”
I’ve finally decided to simply abandon it all. There will never be a mainstream candidate who I can stomach. My politics are centered on joy. My ideal is freedom. In the American oligarchical meritocracy, the state exists simply to exploit me. No politician can bring me joy and no policy could ever ease the pain of capitalism. To the state, I am trash. I am nothing more than a noisy dissident they will fight to silence.
Our Head Opinion Editor Manas Pandit will tell us how important it is to avoid “doomerism.” I will ask him again, as I’ve asked many times before: how? How could anyone possibly look at our political landscape and feel anything other than doom? There is no hope left to be found. All America has to show is centuries of unjust violence, empty promises and a handful of billionaires who have learned the most effective methods of exploitation.
My fellow Assistant Opinion Editor Sam Cavalheiro will talk about how one’s vote in the presidential election isn’t that important. To him, it all comes down to local elections. I find his position admirable, but I can’t say that I agree. When I hear “local elections,” all I can think of us the deep blue stronghold in my hometown of Atlanta.
I think of the “progressives” who have imprisoned my friends and comrades. I think about the Stop Cop City movement, and the tireless hours Mayor Andre Dickens has put in to squash it. I think of all the Democrats who have raised my hopes by campaigning on meaningful change and reform, who then turn around to stab us all in the back. I have never felt more disillusioned from the Democratic Party.
I can already hear the liberal drone that will inevitably follow the publishing of a piece like this: “That’s why it’s important to vote! Make your voice heard! Get these people out of office!” To those of you who are thinking exactly that right now, I hear you. I genuinely understand where you’re coming from and have been one of the voices in that crowd before. However, I no longer believe it. Any politician is set up to fail with the way our government is structured. The most promising modern politician for progressives was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now, she represents everything wrong with the mainstream left. She has proven to be nothing other than another spineless career politician looking to climb the ladder. The system is inherently evil, and it will corrupt even the most well-intentioned people looking to be a part of it.
Liberals around the country are throwing their weight behind Harris. Harris has built her entire campaign around the sentiment that at least she’s not Trump. She truly has no progressive policies. In September, she took a trip to the United States-Mexico border in preparation to announce her plan for a tougher stance on migration. She believes that Donald “Build-that-wall!” Trump was too lenient on our Southern border. In an October interview with NBC, she was asked whether trans people should have access to gender-affirming healthcare. Her answer was simply “I think we should follow the law,” which is an incredibly meaningless sentiment when expressed by the people who create the law. When pressed, she could not bring herself to simply state that trans people should have access to healthcare.
This is a perfect encapsulation of the larger problem. My politics are fundamentally incompatible with those of mainstream politicians. I am not a “single-issue voter.” The problem is not that Harris is leaning enough toward my political inclination. We are operating from two completely distinct bases. Our competing visions are irreconcilable. We have two fundamentally different understandings of how the world works. I don’t want a lenient stance on immigration; I want the entire concept of immigration to die out because all the borders have been destroyed. I don’t want trans people to be begrudgingly handed healthcare; I want them to be openly welcomed into our society. I want to see the entire system collapse, and I want to build a just, equitable world centered on collaboration and joy from its ashes.
“But Zach, we have to stop Project 2025!” I wholeheartedly agree. What will Harris do, however, to keep it from becoming Project 2029? What tangible steps will she take to permanently secure our rights? How will she codify universal abortion access? How could she guarantee safety for trans people? When will she end the genocide in Gaza? Harris has been vice president for years and has accomplished virtually nothing. I’m simply over listening to the empty platitudes that Democrats like to spoon-feed us. She has made it abundantly clear that the only thing she cares about is maintaining the status quo.
Whenever I talk about my feelings towards this issue, I can see the faces of the liberals around me start to twitch. I know how hard they must fight the urge to call me a terrible person. They are itching to just start shouting at me, “How could you believe that?! You’re so naïve! Cleary you’re just a closeted Trump supporter!” Again, I understand where this urge comes from, as I’ve been there before. Liberals are so quick to moralize my decision to not vote. They fight for reform and refuse to understand that I fight for liberation. To them, I am the enemy, just as they are to me. I grant these people some patience, because I can tell they’ve never put all their hopes into a progressive candidate, only for that person to stab them in the back the first chance they get.
In this piece I am not trying to say that voting is inherently bad. Some people just genuinely love and believe in the Democratic Party. Some recognize their faults but are intent on not letting Republicans into office. If you want to go to a Harris rally and hold hands singing about coconut trees, the choice is absolutely yours. If you want to be let down by another closet conservative pretending to care about you, you should absolutely go for it. Go ahead and cast your ballot and wear your “I Voted” sticker for a week and a half so you can continuously pat yourself on the back. However, I believe that there can be more. I refuse to be complicit in this genocidal, fascistic administration any longer.
What, then, is left for people like me? We refuse to give up on our principles, but there isn’t much else out there. Many of us lock ourselves away, tired and angry, and simply bathe in our own misery. Some of us go and join a leftist organization or a communist political party and spend our lives chasing our own tails and pretending to do something. Truthfully, I don’t know what’s out there for me. Essentially, I’m lost and wandering. I will not cast my vote and show my support for any individual or party who would rather me be dead. I hope every day that things will change. Until then, I will seek out joy. I will build my communities and nurture my relationships. I will organize, I will fight and I have to believe that I will eventually win.
Zach Leach can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X at @ZachLeach12.
