Any Steemians following the 2016 U.S. elections are aware of this scientific fact:

We are fucked.

Unequivocally and irreversibly.

And I am under no illusion that this blog post contains an adequate solution to our fuckedness.

Five months from now, either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be elected to highest office of the most aggressive military power on earth.

If Hillary Clinton is elected, her fiscal ineptitude paired with her hawkish, neo-conservative defense policies will ensure that America and the Middle East continue to be fucked in the classic tradition of George W. Bush. We will sink deeper into debt, our enemies will become more numerous and we will invent seven new federal agencies that levy taxes and spy on people.

If Donald Trump is elected … Jesus … Nobody even knows what his policies are. He literally just contradicts himself and insults people all day. Hopefully if we elect him, the rest of the world will band together and destroy us for the greater good of humanity. Or at the very least, cut off our credit until we can behave.

This next paragraph is where I should be telling you that there's a single ray of hope in this grim mess. A shiny Gandalf somewhere who can come galloping in on his magnificent prancing ponycorn and save us from ourselves.

Except there isn't. Hillary or Trump. We are fucked. End of Story.

Gary Johnson is running for president, of course. But he's not going to win, and nobody should pretend that he's going to win, and I'M not going to tell you that he's going to win.

BUT

We should vote for him anyway. And here are 5 good reasons why.

(Besides his bitchin' pink tie)

1. He isn't Trump or Hillary

This should go without saying, but for the love of fuck, don't vote for one of these people.

Ever since I was a kid watching the 2000 Elections on TV, my conservative parents have shaken their heads and talked about the importance of voting for the lesser of two evils.

They even went so far as to criticize their conservative friends who voted for Pat Buchanan because those people were somehow "Taking votes away" from Bush. Even though they themselves claimed not to like Bush very much. The more I have examined this philosophy, the less sense it makes. You should vote for whomever you agree with. End of story. If everybody did that, we would still have nut jobs running for office, but they would be OUR nut jobs, and their opinions would reflect the actual opinions of actual constituents. Gee, wouldn't that be awesome?

2012 was the first election year I voted. After 18 years of conservative indoctrination, I honestly couldn't bring myself to vote for Obama, but on the other hand, Romney seemed like a bit of a cocksucker.

(Pictured: Best Hair since Al Gore)

I was browsing Facebook one day and found the website isidewith.com.
At first I thought it was just a silly Facebook quiz, but after answering a few questions I found myself impressed by the details and depth.

I was even more surprised when my closest match at 87% was a candidate called Gary Johnson whom I had never fucking heard of before in my life. Obama was second at around 60%, and I didn't have jack shit in common with Romney, even though, up to that point I had vaguely assumed that I would be voting for him.
The website bases all of it's quiz matches on actual quotes and voting records from candidates, and I continue to recommend it to my friends as a good "reality check" prior to election season.

It was actually scary to me, that I was planning on voting for the person I agreed with the least, simply because of a meaningless factor like party affiliation. That November, mine was one of the 1.2 million (supposedly useless) votes that went to Mr. Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party.

2. He isn't an extremist.

"Oh Shit. Libertarian. You believe that the government should be shut down, right? Like The Purge: Anarchy?"

Everybody says shit like this, and it's just ignorant and abrasive. As a Libertarian, I firmly believe in the rule of law, and I don't believe that individual liberty should be upheld to such an extent that the strong can oppress the weak with impunity.

(Pictured: Something different and probably more fun than being a Libertarian)

I simply believe that government should exist at the leanest and most efficient capacity that it can - ensuring that people are protected enough to make their own god damn choices. No more and no less.

I would agree that it's a fine line, and no policy is perfect, but it doesn't seem like an insane or extremist point of view.

Mr. Johnson, for his part, is probably more grounded and Liberal-leaning than I am. He's perfectly comfortable talking about better gun legislation, solar energy incentives and better healthcare. The Libertarian approach is simply to try and find a reasonable and cost-effective way to implement those things, allowing private companies and state governments to share in the responsibility.
In politics we always equate government budget cuts with "Big guy not caring about the little guy" but we should really know better.
Throwing money on our problems is lazy and disingenuous in the first place, and federal agencies take irresponsibility to new heights with every fucking dollar with give them.

Every other politician in the race wants to treat Lady Liberty like a big booty ho and throw taxpayer dollars on that bitch.
Gary just wants to talk sweet to her, pass around some bomb ass weed and help her relax a little. Maybe they can work something out.

3. It will have a bigger impact than we assume.

Okay, so maybe you already sympathize with Gary Johnson, but you know it won't actually make a difference if you vote for him.

After all, I said myself at the beginning of this post that he isn't going to win.

Well no, he won't win.

But yes it will make a difference if you vote for him. It will make a difference if you talk about him. It will make a difference if you search him on Google or write blog posts about him on Steemit, or even follow him on twitter.

(Follow me ... Into the Jungle)

Put simply, word of mouth and internet buzz translates to media coverage and media coverage translates to name recognition and name recognition translates to polling strength.

If Gary Johnson polls higher than 15% in enough national polls, he will be allowed in the Presidential debates. How cool would that be? To have a sane, down to earth human being standing up in front of millions of American viewers and telling them basic human truths that have been neglected for so long that we forgot they could be stated in public without being branded a dangerous heretic and shunned.

What radical ideas will this deranged individual spout if he is given the podium?

(Heil Schwanzstucker!)

Well ... Probably some really basic shit that most 12 year olds know, but the average politician couldn't tell you for fear of being ostracized.

Don't bomb civilians in other countries.

Don't spy on your own citizens.

Immigrants are pretty cool.

Stop spending so much God Damn money.

Americans like weed. Stop throwing them in Jail for it.

You know, basic shit like that.

If Gary Johnson gets on national television in November, regardless of the final outcome, you can bet your ass it is going to make an Impact. It's going to tear down barriers and pave the way for the next generation of leadership in this country. Hopefully a saner generation of leadership.

4. It's a healthy alternative to cynicism

To the cynics out there, I totally feel you. Gary Johnson isn't all he is cracked up to be. He's not a savior. He's not a genius. He's not even a particularly polished speaker. He's just a dude.

(Kind of a weird fucking dude if we're honest.)

Maybe he's not strictly Ayn Rand enough for you, maybe he's too left or too right or whatever.

But we have to start somewhere, and to me, this seems like a good compromise.

Call me naive, but I honestly still believe that voting is better than not voting, and this is somebody I can vote for in good conscience and say to myself "He would probably be an okay president."

5. It will seriously fuck with the system

One of the less-examined ramifications of a Third-Party candidate achieving any degree of success is the fact that it will encourage the ruling parties to adapt. Perhaps dramatically.

Unfortunately, barring some serious changes to our rulebook, we will always have a two party system in America. We always have.

However, it hasn't always been the same two parties. Federalist, Democratic-Republican, Whig, Democrat, Republican - The ruling parties have risen and fallen and changed dramatically due to popular attitudes.

Republicans were, generally speaking, seen as the progressive reform party up until the Great Depression, and even as recently as the Reagan era were overwhelmingly pro-immigration.

In recent years, having alienated minority voters and aligned themselves with a primarily older demographic, the party looks to be on the verge of breaking a 20-year gridlock through sheer incompetence, and losing very badly to Hillary Clinton after 8 years of Obama. The downfall of the Republican Party was summarized brilliantly in the following quote (I found it in the comments on that video, so thanks, Youtube Person)

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

- Abraham Lincoln, 1855

My personal theory is that Clinton will serve another 8 years, beating Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio in 2020, and Republican leadership will be left under-funded and out of ideas, scrambling for anything that will work. A fiscally conservative, anti-interventionist, pro-immigration platform will be the logical foil to the Democratic Establishment - which will, by that time, essentially just be the biggest, most expensive, health caring, warmongering bureaucracy taxpayers can buy (Or in this case, borrow).

Issues like civil rights and climate change will be more difficult for the Democrats to monopolize, since they will be mainstream ideas by the mid 2020's. For that reason I suspect that foreign policy and economics will come to the forefront. The Republican party, have failed utterly as the Neo-Conservative Party will restructure itself to be the Libertarian Party in everything but name, and hopefully move forward as a progressive voice in politics for the first time in 40 years.

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Think I'm an idiot? Please Share your thoughts below!
And check out my other posts about Boobs and Penguins.
Thanks for Reading! - Pachenko