2024 will be the first year I get to cast my vote in a presidential election.
I used to look forward to this milestone on my list of firsts.
As a bright and hopeful 17 year old I grew more and more excited for my eighteenth birthday and the amount of firsts that came with it. As an 18 year old, I was ecstatic to cast my vote at the YMCA in a local election for the first time. At 19, part of me doesn’t want to cast my vote for a new president at all.
I should be excited to cast my first vote. I should be excited to use the voice I supposedly have and partake in such an integral part of our democracy. But I’m not. I’m not excited one bit.
Over 25,000 Palestinians have been murdered since October 7, 2023, many of which are children. The United States government refuses to call for a ceasefire to the ongoing onslaught of violence by the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces despite many Americans on both sides of the aisle supporting one. The Gaza Strip is effectively flattened – and the US government under the Biden administration has had every hand in aiding this vicious aggression.
Joe Biden is effectively funding a genocide in occupied Palestine all while using fear to push his reelection campaign under the threat that it could all be so much worse. His approval ratings are down to 39 percent and rightfully so – he is offering nothing.
On the other hand, Donald Trump seems like the likely Republican nominee for the presidency despite his indictment on 91 charges in four different criminal cases and his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, not to mention his unapologetic adherence to white supremacist ideology. If not Trump, then it’s likely that Nikki Haley will spearhead the Republican party in the 2024 election.
I feel hopeless.
Every four years it seems as though the Presidential election is deemed the most important vote of our lives. It is always dire. It also seems as though it’s a never-ending cycle of choosing between the lesser of two evils. I feel like everyone seems to forget that at the end of the day most candidates for the Republican and Democratic parties are just two sides of the same coin.
I refuse to sign my name on a ballot in support of “Genocide Joe” and I absolutely refuse to do so for Donald Trump. I won’t do it for Nikki Haley either. Signing my name to any of these candidates goes against the morals I vehemently refuse to compromise.
I am sick of having to choose between the lesser of two evils. My entire life we have been doing that and we shouldn’t have to.
How many more times do we have to make a choice knowing neither candidate is fit enough? How many more times do countless Americans have to sit there feeling that no major candidate truly has their issues or concerns on their list of priorities to address?
We deserve better, but what we deserve as Americans has never really felt like a concern to a presidential candidate on either side of the aisle.
All 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats are up for election this year. I’ll vote for the legislators I want to represent my state, I can do that. But when it comes to the Presidential election, I’m not quite sure whether or not that spot on my ballot will be filled.
I think Lillian in a Teen Vogue article by Fortesa Latifi explains it best:
“And it’s not that young voters are too lazy to get to the polls — it’s deeper than that. It’s hopeless [to us],” she says. “The collective vibe is hopelessness.”