…and then, the panic sets in.

Posted by Kate G. in US Election 2008.

It’s the day before the election, and I know how you feel.

You’re scared.

You’re not so much scared about who wins or loses. You’re scared about what this election will say about our country. You know that, at this point, if John McCain wins, it’s not the American people who have failed you. It’s the American government.

Already, you’re seeing what seems to be history repeating: obscenely long voting lines, underhanded attempts to stem the flow of democracy through forgery and lies. Like a PTSD sufferer, you’re having flashbacks. You’re remembering 2004, 2000. Remembering how your vote didn’t end up mattering, anyway. How someone effortlessly took hope away from you and left you to watch your rights disintegrate. Like an abused animal, you’re flinching at the idea of Election Day: not because of long lines or Republican attempts to kill votes.

No. You’re scared that the nagging, little feeling inside of you that our country is broken will be validated.

With the validation of that fear will come the realization that our government doesn’t trust us to vote and doesn’t listen to us when we do. It will become painfully clear that the last two elections weren’t that close and they weren’t flukes or malfunctions; they were the truths of our political machine, a machine you’d been hoping and praying would redeem itself.

As a result, all your liberties will seem obsolete. The fight to achieve them was pointless; old, white men weren’t convinced by your votes and dissent, they just gave us liberties to shut us up or to gain something else in return. With this knowledge you’ll realize that old, white men will be able to take them away again, whenever they want. Because your votes don’t matter in the end.

So what do you do if the bottom falls out? What do we do? If it’s out of our hands in the end, how to we stop the panic, and where do we go? Here’s an idea. And I’m totally serious.

1. Give the system one more try, one more chance to either prove itself worthy or manifest as a fraud. VOTE. Drag your friends and family with you. Remember: you can register on Election Day, but you are only allowed to vote for the presidential candidates.
2. Cry like a baby for a week. Stay home from work, if you can. Mourn the death of our political credibility.
3. Get angry and weigh your options. Think about bills, your job, your family and friends. Now think about what you are willing to leave.
4. Seek out other disillusioned Americans and make a plan.
5. Move to Washington or Canada. Be a homeless, protesting bum with all the other pissed-off liberals or say “America who?” and become a Canuck.
6. OR form a secessionist party, if your region is mostly blue.

Okay, so maybe those are my plans. Maybe they’re extreme, but I can’t do this again. I’m knocking on every piece of wood I see that all my planning will be deemed unnecessary. But I won’t be caught off-guard again, not with the New England Secessionist Party in my back pocket.

US Election 2008 |