Ante Up Part III: Who I Voted For

Note: This post is dedicated to the supporters of 45 who campaign on the streets of Fort Lauderdale, especially that greet Saturday morning with their visual offenses at Oakland Park Boulevard and Federal Highway.

Before discussing who I voted for in the 2020 US Presidential Election, I should explain my perspective. I was raised to never trust politicians. I blame being raised by Jamaicans, particularly those who left their country because of party-based instability. (They and their generation would never tolerate that characterization but they also recall the Orange Street Fire and it's hard to not see parallels.)

When I was first start trying to understand what politics and elections were, my parents and their friends would say the same phrase over and over again: "They all lie." It didn't matter what country they talked about - they all lie. I have never been able to remove that cynical view of the politician out of my mind. It has made me focus on issues and ideas far more than personalities in elections. If people with fancy suits show up with silver tongues and fake smiles every few years, why would you believe in them? I believe far more in my God-given right to choose who represents me than in the representative. That shifts the energy. It's one of the reasons my perspectives have shifted from a high-school student who believed what the elder parishioners said about Republicans and saving America to a liberal Democrat that keeps looking to take his protest shoes from college out of retirement.

Well, if all politicians lie, how do you vote for anyone? First, the same ancestors that taught me that politicians lie taught me that my vote was sacred. From the sanitized versions of what Jamaica was like in the 1970s, the reason political violence was so hot is that people were trying to dissuade their political opponents from voting. As a born American, I recognize that the right to vote was fought and bled for. In this system of representative politics, two options exist to exercise your franchise: select a candidate or run yourself. Few of us see ourselves exercising the latter (but we should) so we rely on the former. Even knowing that people lie, what a candidate says and does is the only true way to make a true choice. Affiliations, staff, past relationships, business dealings - they mean something. However, they must be secondary to what is verifiably what a political representative comes forward with to voters.

That principle - assessing a candidate based on what they say and do - made Donald Trump disqualifying to me for my vote for President back in 2015. His statements in front of cameras blaming Mexico for sending criminals across the southern border told me everything I needed to know about him in a nutshell: he did not (and does not) understand the issues surrounding immigration and migration in this country, he has no issues presenting himself as a racist and a xenophobe, and in disrespecting a vital ally he is dangerous as a leader in the free world. The day before the 2016 election, some friends of mine that admitted they were considering voting for him because they wanted to see what he would do and "he didn't really mean all the things he said." If anything the last four years has taught us is that we must take the man who became President in the 2016 election at his word. There are too many damaging aspects to what the current administration has done to this country and the world to list in one blog post. I take personally his statements, both in public and reported, disparaging immigrants, migrants, and asylum seekers. While many administrations have mistreated those crossing the southern border, this administration has taken it to its cruelest heights.

I take issue with how he panders to people of Christian faith, not just being disingenuous with sacred symbols but also making statements that he would not have said six years ago because he knows Evangelicals are listening. I didn't just hear him say things like "chain migration" in referring to first-generation Americans like me; his administration continues to float out ideas to end birthright citizenship as if I am not really American. I take the response to the renewed call for Black lives to matter in this country to ban critical race theory from Federal training as an offense both as a Black man and as a learning and development professional. Chief of all, I am incensed at thinking at how poorly this administration has managed the response to the novel coronavirus pandemic - still blaming China for a virus that months later they have contained (along with other countries) and we have half-stepped to stop. I describe the current President and his administration as an omnishambles (this video defines the word - caution: language). Even where there may be some policy decisions that meet my expectations for government, there are so many holes in governance that they can't be celebrated. And if it weren't bad enough, the President's rhetoric and style has made the public discourse toxic. I used to love taking in opposing viewpoints and considering the other side. Now I'm limiting what I see and hear for my own mental health. That's not good for proper democracy to function.

If you'll recall from my Part 1 last year, I had a criteria statement for those to get my vote:

Leaders who consider the needs of all will get my vote. While hometown issues and those that affect me directly are a priority to me that I expect to get addressed, I am looking for those whose tents are wide. I will select candidates that believe in equality for all. Believing in candidates that can intelligently speak about how the free market works is just as important as those that can understand that rules and measures in that market can let as many people win as possible. Most of all, candidates that speak of protecting everyone's humanity with a focus on the downtrodden and disenfranchised will get my vote.

As a registered Democrat, I watched the primary intently. I saw several good candidates for President, but my first choice was Senator Kamala Harris. I observe her use her legal skills to hold several operatives of this administration accountable in Senate hearings. She was middle-of-the-road on many issues, but spoke full-throated about racial disparities and issues of justice. Knowing she is a fellow Jamerican is novel and encouraging. (In specific terms, her father is from my mother's hometown. His grandmother and my maternal grandfather come from the same tiny district. Are we cousins? Who knows for sure.) Representation does indeed matter, but her qualifications are deeper. Her challenge of former Vice President Biden on his opposition to busing in a primary debate reverberated throughout the race. To some, her supporting him and agreeing to be his Vice Presidential candidate was a business-as-usual compromise that makes her more of the same. I disagree. I listened to her explanation as to why she did it and accept it. I think of my own career and if I chose to never work with people that hurt me or wronged me in the past I would not have reached any of my goals.

There are some important aspects of the American democracy that have been sorely lacking during this last four years: compromise, working across the aisle, co-equal branches of government, and foreign policy norms. While Biden might not share all of my ideals, he meets and exceeds these expectations. From decades in the Senate to eight years as Vice President in the Obama administration, a vote for Biden/Harris is a vote for typical. To make the more perfect union that we strive for that cares for all in our shores, progressives will have to hold a Biden administration to account. That prospect is significantly better than the current administration that is committed to ignoring the least of these.

Considering the third parties: they are attractive if you seek to vote in protest. In other cycles when we are dealing with close political rivals, a third option says "the binary system doesn't serve me." This election makes it less powerful. The Electoral College is selected based on the votes per state. That means the majority of the majority rules. At this late stage, a Libertarian, Green, or Taxpayer party candidate cannot hope to get a majority of any state. I don't want that to be the case, but that's the reality. In Part 2, I said the primaries are the contest of ideals. The essay form of the exam. General elections are the selection of the best options. The multiple choice exam. Does a significant victory for the Democratic Party mean that another party could emerge on the right (or the left) to replace a decimated Republican Party? The people will tell. Keep in mind also in countries with multiple major parties - mostly parliamentary democracies - the ruling parties are either supported by a coalition or forced to work with minor parties to rule. Maybe your favorite third party should get into Congress and state legislators first before going for the top spot.

November 3 is deeply anticipated but won't be magical. Worse, I fear the vitriol will get louder. The only escape from it may only be in our own homes. My prayer is that we continue to be the example of democracy we say we are and respect the result. If the result goes for the candidate I support, I have hope that the heat will cool with the winter and the healing can come. There's nothing perfect about a lying politician, but at least one ticket has put reconciliation and unity on the ballot. Wouldn't it be nice to go back? Before family dinners were landmines of topics we can't bring up? Before parents have to monitor the language of the president on TV? Maybe we can actually take up the causes of racial justice, public health, climate and resources together for once. Bob Marley is gone so we have to join our own hands together. There's too much at stake for us to get it wrong. If you've waited and have the right to vote, do so and do it for those who can't. Vote for the least of these. Vote because our lives depend on it.