April 11th, 2020

I don’t usually get political on my blog for a number of reasons. First being that since I live out of internet and cell range, it can be days before I’m able to get into town to stop what may be a runaway train in my comment section.

Due to COVID19, I have been furloughed from my part time gig as a waitress. Yup. I wait tables to pay my mortgage while I try to build my success as a writer, and a small farm cannabis producer. So before any concerns about me sitting pretty in the woods—let me assure you, until I have new employment, my mortgage is on the line like everyone else’s, AND I do not have health insurance.

So you may be wondering what the hell I was thinking to post this statement on my Facebook page AND potentially vote against my own best interests.

Dear Elizabeth Warren,
I am updating my voter registration to reflect my new status as “independent”. Will you please update your campaign registry to run on the Independent platform? I will write your name in if I must, but I’d prefer to tick a box so you are correctly counted.
Gratefully,
-Done voting for the lesser of evils, and am choosing innovation and quality of leadership.

So. If all goes well my voter registration will update in the next week or two reflecting my shift from the democratic party to the independent. To further explain the statement, I added to the comment section below it:

I refuse for my life and vote to be held hostage to the “lesser evil strategy”. I realize this is a dangerous trend that may lead to dems losing majority which will result in four more years of incompetence. However, I am totally prepared to let the system completely burn down under another botched Trump term so that the whole model can be rebuilt from scratch, OR risk the middle road of recovering democracy’s dignity. We will innovate as a nation, or face the Darwinism of weak government.

If my choices are between two men, each with sexual assault allegations and each with watery plans or no plans at all…I will choose the woman who can inspire a revolution in the way we support and govern from the middle road, with ethics, compassion and strength.

Whether the ship goes down or not, I will know I didn’t vote for either of the captains who have proven they would fight over the life vests meant for passengers.

There’s a reason so many writers and thinkers don’t politicize on social media. The dividing lines are so ridiculously black or white. Most people are afraid of losing respect or followers, advocates or friends.

The thing about creatives, change agents, and anyone who wanders into the fields of tracking innovation, revolutions and ideas that are often criticized as too visionary is that we know…sometimes you can’t fix the broken…you can only demolish the old model and start over with something better.

Are we there yet? Possibly. But there is one thing we haven’t yet tried as a nation.

Evolution.

I know right? Pretty obvious. Why haven’t we tried to evolve our flagging, over-inflated, outdated, relic of a bipartisan model yet?

Because as a nation we are socially conditioned to think on terms of “only this” and “only that”. We are programmed into an early idea that there is only one real answer. I have two words for that: Standardized Education.

Anyway, I’ll leave that soapbox for another day. Back to Darwin and the overcorrected fish tail.

If anyone has ever hit a patch of ice, snow, or oil on the highway, and the car suddenly loses control—they will know exactly what it means to over-correct.

Drivers are taught that to control a vehicle in a skid you turn into the skid. When you turn into the skid, the car will correct the opposite direction—you turn into that skid too. This fishtailing occurs because the wheel base corrections are balancing the momentum of the vehicle which cannot stop, and can only barely be controlled. If you lessen the turn each time, the tires adjust, the moment slows and eventually equilibrium and the correct direction are restored. If you jerk the wheel—you overcorrect and run the risk of flipping your car, or flying into the ditch. Gentle, even, confident corrections will keep you on the asphalt.

If you jerk the wheel, overcorrect and hit the curb---you’ll likely snap your axel. Then your steering will not respond correctly to the left or the right. Savvy?

As a bipartisan government we have been in a state of barely controlled fishtailing since the Cold War, at least…probably longer.

The wild oscillating between Democratic and Republican majority holdings has resulted in a teetertotter which has stalled ANY TRUE PROGRESS. Americans are behind on all the key metrics of humanitarian progress, human rights, economic progress, scientific innovation, education, and so on and so forth. We have a first world budget and a third world track record for how we treat our human populations and environment.

Disagree? How many people in the United States lost healthcare in the middle of a global health crisis? Like four million? In a “first world” country?

I don’t know how you voted, but all your previous arguments against a Universal Healthcare system are hereby rendered irrelevant.

I won’t go on about the broken. People already know it’s broken. Everyone agrees it is broken.

The way we will KEEP IT BROKEN is to continue to over-correct into the skid. Each time one side wins over the other: they backwash the progress from before. Each time the Republicans take the seats, they undo anything the Democrats did, and vice versa. It’s like a not-funny version of Groundhogs Day. We vote the same damned ways every time and complain each time that the system is still broken. There's a word for that.

Meanwhile, other countries are laying down revolutionary groundwork to support students, build health systems, and improve quality of living…while the Democrats and Republicans are playing slappy cake on the teetertotter and everyone in the middle is getting seasick.

Evolve or die.

Innovate or perish. Whether that’s in government, business, or general life. Evolve or die. It’s basic Darwinism. Our bipartisan government has not evolved. It’s too cumbersome to maneuver in crisis efficiently.
Let me repeat that:

Our government is too cumbersome to maneuver in a crisis efficiently.

And it’s too burdened by in-fighting to be sustainable any longer. We will not be able to return to the way things were before COVID19…and we already know that. The problem is that we’ve cornered ourselves into a one-or-the-other way of thinking. Win at all costs means someone loses. Maybe you…maybe your neighbor.

Now we can see that mentality is not going to save us. We are more aware than ever of how interdependent we all actually are. And yet…we still insist on voting “sides”.

REVOLUTIONS happen when the system completely breaks down. Ass over tea kettle. Guillotine-style remodel.

Wait for it to burn…or I dunno…fucking try something different. Evolve.

I’m staying home to keep my community safe for everyone. I intend to vote that way too. Whether that vote counts by volume or not.

I hate for it to come to “evolve or perish”…but I think as a nation, we’re already there.

Of course, the people who are “fear voters” vote to hold the line no matter what will be disappointed with my move to become an independent. Why not vote for Biden? Voting third party is the same as voting for Trump.

By the number, yes, it’s essentially the same as voting for Trump, but in the principle…IT’S A UNIVERSAL DIFFERENCE IN personal nobility and what I'm willing to sell of myself.

I will not vote out of fear. I will vote, with my measly little one vote for the change I believe we are capable of having as a nation. I vote with hope, not cowardice.

Trump’s incompetence, ego, and alleged crimes make him an unfit leader. Biden’s watery, weak plans, and unanswered sexual allegations also make him an unfit leader.

No one will ever be my perfect candidate, but strength, courage, leadership, and ethics should not be the things we sacrifice in order to cling to a broken system. Sacrificing the self-respect of your vote out of fear isn’t really democracy, is it? That’s when the axel snaps, and the whole rig goes careening down the embankment. Sure as shit, if that happens, each side will be blaming the other, rather than those people who are truly responsible.

I fully expect that my write-in vote, and anyone else who does the same will be faced with the realization come November that Trump’s re-election could have been prevented. There will be some frustration, a lot actually.

But I also suspect that four more years of his mismanagement will effectively set ablaze the remaining vestiges of any sense of democracy we thought we had. If I’m handing him a match and saying BURN IT DOWN…essentially what I’m agreeing to is this: tough love to help re-build a flawed paradigm. It will hurt. Yep.

FORCED EVOLUTION. People will not revolt until they have no other option. They will not complain or take to the streets until they are at full risk of losing liberties they cherish. They will not fight for their reproductive rights, or their educations, for their health or their livelihoods UNTIL they are backed into a corner. I have complete faith that he’ll bungle it all and do exactly that. Character arcs are all laid out in the open in the first chapter, after all. Characters can only be what they are.

The alternative is this:

Innovate the system. Gentle, steady, small corrections slow the momentum, and realign the vehicle, right? Where is a middle ground? Where can we agree to start? Where is the most neutral territory from which to support the largest population AND begin to unify under new ideas and strategy?
Naïve?
Unrealistic?
Optimistic?
Ignorant?
Unachievable?
Too much risk?

I dunno…two months ago I would have said it would be naïve to think the world would get hit by a pandemic. I would have said it was unrealistic to move the bulk of jobs to work from home and keep people employed while staying home and staying safe. I would have claimed it too optimistic to think the skies would clear and the oceans and forests begin to heal after just three weeks of lower pollution. I would have said it was ignorant to think we could flatten a curve on a virulent and deadly new virus. I would have said it would be unachievable to create respirators from car parts, and 3-d printers, or turn an army of quilters into mask makers.

Too much risk? More risk than the millions of healthcare professionals in our country dying on the front lines to save our silly stubborn lives while they themselves are undersupplied, under-served and most are drowning in student loan debt?

You tell me. Is it time to evolve the system?