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Privilege and voting green

Before voting, I felt sick to my stomach. Why? Was I not supposed to exude pride as my ancestors’ wildest dreams became a reality for me? Rather, I not only casually contemplated my vote, but I wondered if I should vote at all. Nausea nearly took me hostage as I inserted my little card at the electronic voting booth. I looked across the room at my mother, her face stricken with urgency. I watched the beautiful faces of my people beam as they cast their votes and were rewarded with patriotic stickers for this so-called civic duty. Perhaps it was hot in that early voting room, but I could not stop sweating as I realized what I was about to do: cast my first presidential vote as green.

As an Illinoisan, I have a privilege. This privilege cannot be defined by my assuming I will live a fine life regardless of the outcome, and therefore can “waste my vote” on a third party candidate (and as the hackneyed saying goes, there is always Canada). My privilege stems from the blueness of my state. Illinois is one of a handful of Democratic strongholds with enough electoral votes to be influential. None of the Trump projected wins led credence to the idea that all votes matter – a possible Trump win had little to do with Illinois according to these electoral maps. In addition, Illinois has been a blue state since the 1988 presidential election. Is it dangerous to assume that a state will “go blue” and will therefore not contribute to a possible Trump presidency? Perhaps. Did it influence the fact that I ultimately did not vote blue? Yes.

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What is perhaps most dangerous about all of this is that pressure from celebrities, former candidates, and politicians like President Barack Obama rarely acknowledges such privilege. Obama’s “Don’t boo, vote” rhetoric may have sounded particularly urgent if you live in a state like Ohio or North Carolina, where the numbers remain close for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. However, how can the Democratic Party maintain more targeted incentives for voting when there is a common understanding that states like Illinois, California, and New York will “go blue” and with no end in sight? Further, does this lack of incentive structure – other than fear mongering – involve the Democratic Party taking such votes for granted, in a similar manner as the “electoral capture” model suggests the party does for African American votes?

Even with election night over, I have no answers to these questions. What I do know is that when Clinton announced her second run for President of the United States, I was admittedly not as enthused as I would have hoped. Outside of her own policies, I had already become disillusioned with the two party system. This was not in any way helped by the heightened racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic commentary coming from the right that seemed to squeeze me into an uncomfortable box. Apathy for Clinton was understood, even at times sanctioned, but when Sanders did not win the Democratic nomination – “who else are you going to vote for?” and “anyone but Trump, right?” Right.

This was only my first time voting in a presidential election, although it feels like I have been embossed with politics my whole life. I wanted my first vote to be for the first black president of the United States; I wanted my vote to be revolutionary. However, I was too young to vote for Barack Obama.

Regardless, voting is but one means – albeit, a prominent one – to achieve political and social change. So I did my research and identified my politics with how they aligned or conflicted with those of Hillary Clinton. I never considered Donald Trump to be an option either as a nominee or as a candidate. This left me and other black voters with a choice: “give” Hillary Clinton the black vote she may not deserve or risk Donald Trump being elected.

Again, where was my incentive structure to vote for Hillary? Guilt no longer worked, and unless, in an alternate universe, Illinois took an unprecedented move and went red, the blood of a Trump election will not be on my ballot. Perhaps there is something wrong with the fact that I can vote with my true conscience – not out of fear for a Trump presidency- while my fellow skeptics of the two party system in Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida could not have so easily made this choice. There is something more at work that simply the ills of the Electoral College system.

Such unbalance of power and privilege may not bode well long for either party, especially for the Democrats. The two-party system is in desperate straits, one that will become even more complicated with the projected increase of Latinx people by the year 2045. How long can this go on before it falls?

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Imani Thornton is a Politics major from Matteson, Ill. She can be contacted at it4@princeton.edu.

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