Politics, Fear, and Third Party Canidates

  When I told Bryan I was thinking of writing this post he was surprised. "Should I not do it?" I asked. "No, I think you should, I just didn't think you had the guts." He replied. "Neither did I." I laughed.

That little bit of conversation gives you an idea about how nervous I'm feeling writing this post. I don't really like conflict. I am not very political and honestly I don't usually understand how fierce people can get over politics. Maybe part of why I didn't understand it is that I don't really agree with the fiery people around me. Maybe it's partly because the issues people get fiery about aren't usually the same issues I really care about. Maybe it also feels a bit pointless getting fired up about something when you really are quite powerless.

When it comes down to it, I feel like I didn't have much choice. I always felt like my vote had to go to one of the two main parties and neither of them really resonated with me all that much.

In every Presidental election I've participated in my deciding factor when it came time to check one box or the other was this, "which guys better than the other?" Which is the "lesser evil"? But, honestly, is that really a good way to pick the person who's going to run our country?

I consider myself relatively informed, especially in the last few elections, but I still would say that at the end of the day I didn't vote for someone because I really supported THEM and their party and their stance on important issues, but instead voted for them because I thought they were better than the OTHER GUY. I didn't vote FOR a candidate I voted AGAINST a candidate.

And when it comes down to it that's how I've voted in all the elections I've participated in. I voted out of fear instead of conviction. The fear may have been different depending on where I was at in life and different influences. The boxes I ticked may have been different, but the fear was the same really.

Bryan and I try hard in our personal lives not to be driven by fear and not to make decisions out of fear. I don't think I should turn around and decide who I'm gonna vote for now out of fear. This election I really wanted to vote FOR someone, instead of just AGAINST someone.

So, when a friend posted about isidewith.com on facebook I was intrigued. Here is a site where you can take a quizz and it will tell you which candidates you line up with best. I was intrigued. But, I was also skeptical.

I didn't feel like I fit in any party. But, I also don't really feel like the democratic party fit or always emphasised the things I really care about. I knew there were third party options, but knew very little about them and assumed they were mostly just extreme options that wouldn't fit me either. So, I took the quizz, completely expecting to get a really mixed answer with low percentages across the board.

I was first surprised to find how thorough the quizz was. It covered a lot of issues and policies and even had a way for you to designate which ones were most important to you. And then I got my results: 88% Jill Stein, green party.

I was surprised. 88% is a pretty high percentage. It means that my views line up with Jill Stein and the green party view a vast majority of the time. After getting over my surprise that there actually is a party out there that for the most part fits with my opinions, my next thought was "I don't know anything about the green party, well, apart from the whole Nader thing." In fact as I thought about it all I was taught about the green party, and third party candidates in general, was that they aren't good because they pull votes away from the main party candidates.

So, I started reading about the green party and was surprised again. Overall, there was a lot that resonated with me in this party that emphasized environmental stewardship, social justice, and equality.

Ok, I have to stop right here for a moment and tell you what happened when I got to this point in writing this post... I sort of freaked out internally. I set the post aside. I started rethinking posting this, but more than that I started really debating in my head the merits of voting for a third party candidate. I started feeling fear. And I started asking myself, why the heck am I writing this post and telling the world all this anyway? But, I worked through all that and I'm back writing again.

When it really comes down to it there's two things I want to share and these two things are why I'm writing this post:

First, I hear a lot of people bemoaning their choices during elections, saying that they don't really like either choice, but "this guy is better than that guy". That really is no way to pick our leaders. Or at least I don't think so and I don't want to vote like that anymore. And really I'm realizing that our choices are only limited if we allow them to be.

As long as we vote that way and continue to buy into the two party system nothing is really gonna change. Third party candidates won't be taken seriously and won't be given a place at the table until people start to step out and vote for them. Truth be told voting for a third party candidate probably won't change much in this election, but it could start changing things for the next election and the one after that. Because if they can get just 5% of the vote then people may start taking them seriously and including them in debates.

And really how bad would it be if either of the two main party candidates this time around won? When I try to rationally answer that question, well, not that bad or at least not that different.

Perhaps this is part of why the big parties promote such fear (and even terror), because if people believe that it'll be "the end of the world" or something equally terrifying if the other candidate wins then they won't risk "throwing away their vote" on a third party candidate. If they believe that the worst will happen if the "other" candidate wins then they will vote for the main party candidate closest to their views even if they don't really agree with them.

Which leads me to my second point.... I don't want to live in fear. And I don't want to vote in fear. And I don't want to be inundated by the opinions of those who do.

I'll be happy when this whole thing is over. Because, whoever wins, God will still be on the throne after this election and at least all my feeds won't be inundated with politics anymore (or at least not as much).

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman