Elections and "enthusiasm:" a thread.

1988. Candidate: Michael Dukakis.

Did I vote for him in the primary? No. I voted for Gore. Did I have anything against Dukakis? Also no.

Dukakis did not come to my house with wine and flowers to woo me like a contestant on some dumbass reality TV show, and I didn't need him to.

Result of election: George Bush I won and happily continued Reagan's policies, which had harmed poor people like my family for 8 years.

Further result of election: severe recession.

Maybe it wasn't severe for you. Congratulations on that. People I knew lost their jobs. People in my extended family lost their jobs.

As usual, as happens over and over throughout U.S. history, a Democrat had to clean up the mess.

Election: 2000. Candidate: Al Gore.

I liked Gore. I like smart presidents. They're less damaging to the people who are most often damaged by shitty policies.

Gore did not appear at my birthday party to do magic tricks or make absurd promises about what he could do as president.

I voted for him anyway.

Result: George W. Bush, whose ineptitude made his father look OK by comparison. He didn't do the basic work required of a president & thousands of people died as a result. He followed this with Operation Daddy Issues. People are still dying today.

Election: 2004. Candidate: John Kerry. Not an exciting guy, but a war hero, and more importantly, NOT a war profiteer or a war criminal. He was the guy Most Likely To Read the FBI Briefings That Might Stop Terrorist Attacks.

I guess Kerry wasn't exciting to a lot of other people either, but I voted for him anyway because he wasn't a rich lazy dumbass.

GWB won again.

Result?

Anyone?

Oh yeah: to start with, Hurricane Katrina.

Turns out the guy who was too lazy to pay attention to impending terrorist attacks was also too lazy to give a damn about a huge hurricane hitting his own country.

What's the official death toll? About 1500? Not counting people who died weeks later, lost homes, other losses.

Not done yet. There was also a massive recession during what passed for a presidency. People lost homes and jobs. Turns out he was more like the old man than we gave him credit for.

Again, a Democrat had to come in and clean up his mess while he painted his dogs' pictures.

So here we are. 2016.

Oh, wow, people aren't ENTHUSIASTIC about Biden. He's not begging them personally on bended knee for their votes. He hasn't bought anyone a pony.

He also hasn't put hundreds of kids in cages away from their parents.

He also hasn't postured and ranted at "press conferences" and advocated for use of an unproven drug to fight a pandemic and withheld medical equipment from blue states and sneered at governors who haven't kissed his ass & ensured there aren't enough tests to affect "his numbers."

Moral of the story: people who weren't enthusiastic and didn't vote, or voted third party, have contributed to a hell of a lot of unnecessary suffering by people in this country.

I don't need to be wooed and if you're old enough to vote you shouldn't either.

So I guess TL;DR if you won't show up to vote for the good of vulnerable people because you're just not enthusiastic enough, or the candidate hasn't become your bestie, you can sit home smugly in the knowledge that some people are going to suffer and die because you're a child.