Vote?!

Why should we have any hope in this system?

We’re in that frenzied stage of every election year, with many urging us to vote, to save democracy, to prevent the horrors of Trump. While I’ve certainly been that person in the past, it rings a little hollow when the Democratic nominee has shown every intention of continuing to fund a genocide with billions of our tax dollars. When I mention this, many democrats will assume I have no intention of voting and that I want to let Trump win.

Do I think Trump could lead us even more quickly into World War 3 and a collapse of global ecosystems? Sure. But Harris seems to be headed down the same road, albeit with more performative gestures of sympathy along the way. So why will I cast a vote for Harris? I guess I have a tiny shred of hope. Not for Harris specifically. It has little to do with anything she’s ever said or done. And more to do with the fact that when Abraham Lincoln was elected, he had no real intention of ending slavery.

While Lincoln didn’t love slavery, he ultimately aimed to preserve the union and our “democracy” with or without it. After his election and the country’s descent into war, things started to shift. Lincoln was haunted by visions that seemed to foretell his own death. He dreamt of his own funeral. He saw a double image of his face in the mirror, one normal, one paler and ghostly. While the war weighed heavy on his heart, he seemed to perceive that he was being called to some higher purpose. It was Frederick Douglass who was finally able to convince him to emancipate the enslaved, so that they might be used as a weapon of war.

It was only as history was happening, that Lincoln began to understand what he was there for.