Well, first, stop reading this book.
Information is a pain in the ass, a barking dog that won’t stop barking until you understand that Lassie wants you to save the kid in the frozen pond. (Loved that show!)
Because once you know for certain that there are ballot bandits singing in the basement, you’re obligated to take action. To make noise, make trouble, make a difference.
And you’ll vote. If for no other reason than you won’t let the bastards steal your vote . . . and you won’t steal it from yourself by not voting. You’ll vote in person and early—after you’ve checked your registration in September each and every year.
But there are those little voices still in your head that say, “Screw’m. They’re all liars; they all disappoint us or worse. They get a Nobel Peace Prize then launch a new war. They campaign ‘for the hard-working middle class,’ then cut taxes for their billionaire buck buddies.”
You think they’re all the same or there’s not enough difference between them to stop playing Call of Duty and stand in line with the other suckers.
So, you steal your own vote.
That’s exactly what happened in Wisconsin and Michigan.
You’ve now read that long chapter on how they stole Wisconsin in 2016. But there’s an uglier side to this story, which we like to keep quiet, like we keep quiet about our criminally insane aunt living in our attic.
I read the news reports about a University of Wisconsin study that said Trump won the state by 22,000 votes because more than 50,000 African-American and student voters were blocked by the new ID law.
But, in violation of the rules of American journalism, I read the whole study, not just the press release.
The professors calculated that, as big as the ID blockade on students and Black voters was, it wouldn’t have mattered but for the decision of at least another 50,000 not to vote because they didn’t like the choice of candidates. And they weren’t upset that Marco Rubio wasn’t on the ballot.
A lot of my closest (ex-)friends said, “If Bernie’s not on the ballot, if they give us that harridan in a pants suit, well, fageddaboutit. I’m not voting.”
I get it. They even had a Twitter handle, “#Bernie or Bust.”