First, this rant is just to get this issue off my chest. I have watched all the memes, all the posting in the fandoms I follow and have come across a hypocritical point.
One of the recurring themes that keep popping up is how a vote for the Third party is a vote for Hillary/Trump (depending on which side you oppose) and how this is just a protest vote and was wasted. And then all the flames that follow this and why and blah...blah...blah. I wish to put something on the other side because all I see are bickering and how you must be this or you must be that.
First off, for me voting third party is NOT...I repeat NOT... a protest vote. The candidate that I voted for, I wanted to win. I agree with most of their policies and on the ones I didn't, it was negligible. My vote went to the candidate that I wanted to vote for, for the only reason that matters, that I want them to win. It was not in protest, it was not because I said: "Screw you, you both suck so I'm going this way".
Two: voting third party is NOT throwing your vote away. It is if you vote for who you don't want to win but it's not if that is truly who you want to win. If you vote your conscience, then it's not wasted and when all is said and done, you can truly say that you did your part and you can honestly say you did NOT vote which every megalomaniac wins. You see, I don't understand where that way of thinking came from accepting from the mainstream media with ties to either of the big leaders to make you think that. Here's a question, for all the people who think that voting third party was a wasted vote, did you even look at the other candidates? Did you even know there were two other candidates worth voting for? Did you even look past all the big media outlets to find out? With all due respect, America, you were still lead by the nose to vote the way the media wanted you to vote so don't tell me my vote was wasted. We are not a two party only democracy. There are more, but we were only told about the two. You see, if more people had been educated in the fact that there were 4 candidates and not just 2, then maybe people might have voted differently. But we, as a society, have only been shown the 2 loudest candidates and told this is all we have to choose from while the other two were swept under the rugs, not given air time, not ALLOWED to be in any debates... exactly how was this fair and democratic? So before you tell me my vote was wasted, tell me why you assume there are only two legal parties and I must choose between the lesser of two evils.
And speaking of "sometimes it's better to vote for the lesser of two evils" thought process. With all due respect, a lesser evil is still evil. Why in the HELL would I vote for someone who I would call evil when there is another candidate that I don't think is evil at all. Misguided maybe but not evil. I don't understand why someone, in a fandom that supports diversity in thinking and living, would tell me that I must choose between evil A or evil B when there are two other, not even close to being evil, choices. And then go and tell me that if I don't vote for the lesser of two evils, my vote was wasted and it's my fault that (insert candidate here) was voted in.
This was a personal rant that I needed to get off my chest. Tomorrow may be the end of whatever hope we've ever had for our Country, but I refuse to have people say that it's the fault of those that voted the third party because those votes didn't go to help their candidate. If I wanted to vote for them, I would have. But I didn't because there was a better choice for me, and in the end thats what the ability to vote is all about.