Why Your Vote No Longer Counts & The True Power Of Abstention

(I am reposting here on Substack a portion of something I wrote back in 2018. Important to note how much has stayed the same since then, and what has gotten worse. It is also important to note that this was written before COVID1984.)

Dear America, If Voting Made Any Real Difference, They Wouldn’t Let Us Do It (2018)

Even if you vote, or not, and your party wins, or not, the police state will continue. Constantly voting for the lesser of two evils has manifested into an inevitable cycle in which the government gets more powerful and the people get poorer. But don’t take my word for it, just look at the current state of America.

50 percent of all American workers make less than $30,533 a year. In the meantime, however, the politically connected elite made up of the 0.1% have increased their wealth by more than $1 trillion in the past year. One trillion also happens to be the same amount of money that the US taxpayer has had placed on their backs in the form of government debt in the last year too. Coincidence? Probably not.

“But if the republicans keep the house we will make America great,” right? Or, “if the dems take the house, we can finally have nice things,” right? Wrong. The reality of the situation is that no matter who gets elected, these politicians have already made a Faustian bargain to keep the police and warfare state in power.

In today’s political climate, it is no longer a question of which party is in power, or which party will usher in totalitarianism. Instead, we have reached a point of simply waiting for the hammer to finally fall.

Donald Trump ran on a platform to make government smaller, get America out of these endless wars, cease the chaotic and out of control spending, and rein in the overreaching executive. Instead, he’s continued wars, increased spending, and followed in his predecessor’s footsteps in using his position of president like a dictatorship with executive order after executive order—most recently threatening to alter the very Constitution with one.

One could make the argument that Trump is not a politician, never has been, and is truly out to buck the system and bring about an era of change. While that is debatable, it is also possible. However, as I have said many times, abstention is a legitimate political stance to take in the face of such overwhelming collusion and corruption.

It is important that every American honor this nation's true values by following their heart and voting for who you truly believe in, even if that may be no one.

The concept of abstention dates back to the Founding Fathers and the creation of this country. An extensive paper written by Grant M. Hayden entitled, Abstention: The Unexpected Power of Withholding Your Vote, breaks down this idea and shows how this practice has been used throughout history in just the type of situation Americans currently find themselves.

"In some cases, people abstain when they are indifferent among the electoral choices, or when they judge the benefits of voting to be outweighed by the costs. The underlying assumption is that abstention, unlike voting, is neutral with respect to the outcome. But while the contours of the right to vote have been the subject of a tremendous amount of scholarship across many disciplines, abstention, despite its obvious connection to the right to vote, has been almost completely igno