I love Bernie Sanders and his great plans for the country, but I'm not really #feelingtheBern.
There's been lots of chatter from young (and often older voters) that they will throw their votes away if Bernie doesn't get the Democratic nomination for President. Even more chatter about how evil the "Establishment" is in this country.
The "establishment government" is not in itself, evil. It's what has seen us through from the inception of this country. It's in need of reform, undoubtedly, however, our government has always had a symbiotic relationship with big business and Wall Street. Wall Street is not in and of itself evil either, again, in need of reform and proper regulations to make sure it works correctly. The problem with dismantling the establishment is that the general population is exceedingly lazy (most of us can't even get off our asses to vote in mid-terms or any local elections). Revolution and rebuilding a society takes many hard workers going in the same direction. You think people resisted Obama's plans for hopeful change? Wait until we try to restructure as a "Socialist" society. Americans are not desperate enough to have a true revolution, with 8 years under a republican president who has appointed 3 or 4 new regressive, Climate Change denying Supreme Court Justices we possibly would be though.
That being said, I won't throw our country or Mother Earth under the bus in order to try to teach everyone a lesson. I will always vote to keep a Democrat in the White House. I don't actually believe that revolution will ever start from a politician in office. Revolutions are strongest when started by the people. Bernie is a great idea man. He's a master seed planter for his ideology, but he's worked 40 years in the establishment that he claims to hate. I don't trust that. He doesn't mind picking up his establishment paycheck.
I'll vote for whomever the nominee is, but I don't fool myself into believing that one is establishment and one is not. Bernie will be surprised if he makes it to the White House over how little power he has to effect or influence the change he speaks of. You need not look further than Jimmy Carter's presidency to see what a revolutionary anti-establishment leader actually gets done as opposed to what he wants to get done. I think if Bernie manages to get in, he'll have a similar one term presidency and then we'll lose control to the Republicans for 8 years or beyond which would mean Climate disaster (most Republicans don't believe in Climate Change in spite of scientific evidence). I have so many more reasons that I haven't touched on, but I just wanted to address this one issue.
I've thrown a few votes away in the past, voting with my conscious, voting for a third party candidate, but guess what? The joke is on you. No one cares that you do that. You're not teaching either side a lesson. Third party results rarely even get reported or talked about on the news. I won't be throwing my vote away, this year or ever again. I'm voting blue and I hope you will too.
