Is Having A Good Reason Too Much To Ask?

Posted on November 7, 2016

I’ve avoided writing too many blog posts about the upcoming political election, or making Facebook/Twitter posts about it because…well, everybody else is pretty much doing it. I’m tired of the whole thing. I’m tired of the worrying, which I’m very, very good at by the way. My Little Brother often tells me to chill out, that the candidate I’m voting for, who I think might lose, will win, and things will be fine. Now he’s calling me lately and saying “I’m worried, Big Brother.” That’s not good. Unless he’s suddenly growing chest hair, his being worried is alarming.

So why then am I breaking protocol and writing about anything having to do with the election tomorrow? First, because you need to vote. Please get out and vote. Whoever you’ve chosen, even if it’s not who your friends, family, or I’d choose, vote. The media blitz of discouraging headlines about voter fraud is having the desired effect of making us feel it won’t matter. It WILL matter.

Second, I had an experience recently with a friend of the family who announced she had voted for Trump. I admit that I was dumbfounded, and didn’t see that coming at all. In my defense, I didn’t react in a negative way, and instead asked why. Her response? “Because of crooked Hillary.” I asked if there was another reason. There wasn’t. That was it. Crooked Hillary.

I don’t have a problem with someone voting for a candidate who I’m not voting for. If we do vote for different people, then I suspect…I hope we have our reasons. I have a problem with her only reason being Crooked Hillary. And after I prodded a little more, it was uncovered that Trump is who her husband voted for, so she did the same.

We, she and I, talked the next day about it, and I explained why I wasn’t voting for Trump. I asked her if she enjoyed attending her gay son’s wedding. She did. I explained Trump opposes marriage equality, and stated he would sign a religious freedom bill, essentially allowing legal discrimination against the LGBTQ community. She didn’t know that. She didn’t know he’d said he would strive to have Roe v. Wade overturned if he got into office too through appointing conservative Supreme Court justices.

There were a number of things she wasn’t aware of, and I stayed away from talking up the candidate who I plan on voting for. I know what my reasons for voting for this candidate are. She didn’t for hers. That bothers me.

Our choices of candidates this year are lacking. The United States has always seen itself as a leader in the world. We’re supposed to set the bar. Well, we’ve set the wrong one, the bar of lowness, and we’ve set it quite high. Do I believe both political parties need an enema? Absolutely. Do I believe Trump is the one capable of delivering that enema? No. Do I think my candidate can? I’m not convinced on that front either, but I’m surmising the candidate I’m voting for won’t do as horrific a job. I do like my candidate’s polices, though, so I have my reasons for voting the way I am.

Have a reason, folks, but make it a good reason. Support their policies, know their policies, know what they plan to do when they get into office, think about how it impacts you and the people who you know. You have one of the most powerful ways of sending a message that some countries don’t. You have more of a say than some of our peers around the world.

Vote.

But have a good reason for who you vote for.

And let’s hope Little Brother never grows any chest hair. I so don’t want to be on the other end of the phone if he does.

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Kristoffer Gair (who formerly wrote under the pseudonym Kage Alan) is the Detroit-based author of Honor Unbound, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell, several short stories featured in anthologies (to be combined in a forthcoming book), the recently re-published novella Falling Awake, its sequel, Falling Awake II: Revenant and Falling Awake III: Requiem.