We can’t afford another Harambe situation.
(@kanyedoingthings / Instagram)
I think it’s fair to say that the 2020 presidential election will be a shitshow. I know, I should have more faith. But let’s look at the facts: we’re choosing between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — AKA bad and worse. So, it makes sense why a lot of people are hoping for some magical superhero to come and save the day and take over the election.
Spoiler alert: Kanye isn’t that person. He will never be that person and that person won’t ever exist.
You’ve probably seen Kanye’s tweet on the Fourth of July announcing he’ll run for president.
After laughing, banging your head against the wall, or staring at your phone in horror at the news, you might’ve wondered what Kanye’s policies would be.
Well, the Yeezy owner wants to run under the Birthday Party platform (with encouragement from Elon Musk), and wants to organize the White House like the fictional — I repeat fictional — country of Wakanda from the Black Panther movie.
Spoiler alert part two: nobody can win a presidential election with these positions. Regardless, are you really going to vote for a man who’s never voted in his life? Are you really going to worsen American’s reputation as a pit stain of stupidity in the world?
I know, it sucks. But the reality is that we live in a country with a two-party system composed of Democrats and Republicans. Of course, third party candidates exist all the time, but they never get close to winning elections. The only president who ever won on a third-party entry was Theodore Roosevelt with the Progressive Party in 1912.
Considering how unlucky 2020 has been so far, I have serious doubts that this election will be comparable to then. So, pretty please with a cherry on top, don’t vote for Kanye. Don’t even write in a vote for Bernie Sanders. When our country is as divided as it is, every vote matters. We can’t afford to split the vote again.
All you have to do is take a look at the 2016 presidential election for a reason why.
Hilary Clinton won 3% more votes than Trump in 2016. But that didn’t matter. In this country, it’s all about the plurality vote, not the majority vote, Which, is actually a lot harder to get than you’d think.
We live in a two-party country; the winner takes all when it comes to elections.
But do you want to know the biggest issue in all of this? Americans don’t vote. In the 2016 presidential election, almost half of the country’s eligible voters didn’t vote. This comes down to a couple of reasons.
The United States is one of the few modern countries that haven’t made Election Day a federal holiday. As a result, lots of working-class voters can’t make it to the polls because they can’t afford to take a day off.
So, it can be a hassle to vote. And when so many Americans think that their one vote doesn’t matter — and let me tell you, it very much does — all these obstacles to vote just aren’t worth the trouble.
Not liking either candidate doesn’t make voting any easier, either. But let me remind you: voting is not only a privilege, it’s your civic duty. It’s the basis of democracy at it’s simplest level.
Yes, you’re voting for the better of two evils but have you seen the mess this year has been? Just this past week, Trump called for deportations of international students legally studying in the U.S. if their fall semester classes are online. In a Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration now added more restrictions on accessing birth control on the basis of “religious and moral beliefs.”
The only way a third candidate would win the 2020 election, is maybe if Michelle Obama magically decided to run. And unfortunately, I don’t think she’d want to get into this mess.
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Lauren Rousseau is the Online Editor at Rowdy Magazine. She loves reality tv, all things pop-culture and baking cookies at inappropriate hours. Find her on Instagram at @laurenxrousseau or send her a pitch at laurenrousseau58@gmail.com