I'm getting really fucking tired of voting being discussed in terms of who owes who what.

No one owes anyone anything, except that our elected politicians owe us doing the best fucking job they can.

Who owes who what is irrelevant outside of that.

The idea of witholding votes because you don't owe a certain politician, or that you owe the frontrunner a vote, are completely goddamn irrelevant.

It's a primary. People run, someone wins, then people do or do not vote for them.

Sometimes the best candidate in the primary wins, sometimes not.

None of that has anything to do with who owes who what.

We go through the primary process, someone gets the nomination, then you decide if you're voting for the nominee.

Sometimes that's going to mean you're voting for someone you can avidly support.

Sometimes that means holding your nose.

It's not about who's "owed" a vote.

It's entirely about what you think that nominee is going to do, versus what their opponent will do.

If you're in the position of voting for someone you can support without hesitation, that's great.

But in the long term, in the big picture you're voting based on what you think that person is going to do if put in that position even when you don't feel eager about doing so.

The point of the primary is that this is supposed to be where each candidate makes the case for what they plan to do.

Here's where any semblance of "owing" anyone comes in.

The candidates owe us making the best possible case for themselves.

What got fucked up this time around got fucked up on multiple levels.

The DNC and the Dem establishment pushed someone who has absolutely NOT made a real case for himself.

All while going *signal lost* on another candidate who actually tried to make a strong case.

And trying their level best to oppose another candidate who made a powerful case for himself but whose campaign seemed to believe they don't need to make that case EVERYWHERE, all in the face of that DNC opposition.

And bending the rules for a dude whose case was "Money".

And between that and every other candidate simply running into the point at which they'd spent and spent and it wasn't enough...we got stuck with the candidate who made the least case for himself.

NOW would probably be a great time to start making that case.

But the question of who should be voting for him is not a matter of who is owed votes from whom.

He will get votes from people who think that in contrast to Trump he will push the country in a better direction.

The framing of people saying they're not voting for him because they don't "owe" him votes is nonsense, as is the framing that they MUST vote for him or it's their fault Trump wins.

If Biden is the nominee, it's his responsibility to the voters to make a case that he can lead.

But don't NOT vote out of spite. If you feel he didn't make the case well enough, and you feel that where he might lead the country is NOT better than what we have now? Then vote your conscience. Not out of some sense your vote is being demanded.

I get that this time around we actually had one of the few times where we had progressive aims represented.

And instead we get another centrist at a time where it's increasingly clear that centrism isn't going to save us.

But so much of the stuff around the individual candidates is people pouring themselves into identifying with people who are, at the end of the day, POLITICIANS.

They're a politician you like. They may even be a good person. You are still just ONE constituent, one voter.

The reality is that even if you met them and they were very nice and very personable unless you're around them all the time you're one among millions of faces.

Their campaign isn't your goddamn family. They're not your dad, mom, aunt, uncle, grandpa, or grandma.

Whatever meaning, whatever sense of belonging, whatever notion of a movement you convinced yourself of?

You supported a politician running for public office. The deeper meaning you ascribed to that is something you sold yourself.

I was disappointed when Castro dropped out, because we'd lost a progressive voice.

I was disappointed when Warren dropped out, for the same reason.

And I'm disappointed that it's come to Bernie dropping out, because now we don't have a progressive running.

And now that we have the most milquetoast possible centrist apparently getting the nomination?

I'm not exactly fucking happy about it.

But having to vote for a milquetoast centrist has been MULTIPLE DECADES OF ELECTIONS.

And if the option is putting that centrist into the White House or have four more years of the blithering shitpile in there now?

I'll take four years of ineffective, impotent bullshit over actively catering to fascists.

But that's MY reasoning.

If that's not good enough for you, that's fine.

But again, vote based on what YOU need the nominee to have proven to you.

Vote based on what YOU expect each party's nominee to do and which future you think will be better.