The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck About Voting for President
- Election season has become a dreadful experience of partisan bitterness.
- The Hamilton Method will allow voting to be a civic exercise again.
As we prepare for the next presidential campaign, average voters must be feeling a sense of dread. We all know what’s coming. Unwatchable partisan news coverage and inevitable protests and violence between radical groups in the streets.
This dread is not on television and social media alone. It also touches our personal lives. We will have to deal with awkward and heated conversations with our neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family.
Some of us may be insulated in an echo chamber, but this divider may suddenly shatter when our crazy uncle has had enough to drink at Thanksgiving dinner and feels it’s time to lecture everyone.
Beyond family, some random strangers have a vigilante sense of duty to strike up conversations and push their personal agenda onto you. The most annoying aspect is their parroting of what they heard from their chosen media outlet.
And what is our inebriated uncle or the erratic idealist talk about come election time? Candidates. They will discuss why one candidate is a threat to the country and the other will save us from destruction. Most of the topics usually skip policy and go right to the personalities of each.
Once the parties choose their nominees and the election becomes one-on-one, Democrat vs Republican, the same old tired conversations are bound to ensue:
“Did you hear what he said?”
“Can you believe she did that?”
At some point, you will likely receive some amount of criticism for your potential vote. The personal flaws and characteristics of the Democratic candidate are now your responsibility. Any gaff or controversial behavior from a Republican candidate’s college days is now a reflection of Republican voters.
Rarely is the common good discussed.
Democrats will vote for Democrats and Republicans will vote for Republicans. Pinning the blame on voters for a candidate’s misdeeds is unfair. Voters simply want to perform their duty and go about their business.
This unfairness stems from our national election between two candidates.
Elections are meant to be a gauge of the electorate’s interests. But our national elections have turned the practice into a vacuous contest of false idols.
What if I told you there was a way for voters to perform democratic responsibilities without turning this quadrennial practice into a festival of fighting?
The Hamilton Method is the answer voters are searching for relief from political arguing.
It removes national elections that force voters into one of two camps.
With fifty-one local elections with multiple parties in each state, voters are no longer forced into voting for a single national candidate simply because they are of the same party.
The national spotlight of the media will be dimmed as it is impossible to focus on the screw-ups of one candidate.
With thousands of potential candidates, the connection between voters and a single candidate’s past mistakes is broken. If a serious scandal occurs with a particular elector, they can easily be replaced and a party and its voters move forward.
If one Democratic elector from Iowa cheated on his taxes, this has nothing to do with Democratic electors in California or North Carolina. If a Republican elector in Maine lies about their past accomplishments, this has nothing to do with Republican voters in Washington or Florida.
Voting will become a simple civic duty once again.
The Hamilton Method allows voters to not give a f*ck about voting for president.
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For full details of the Hamilton Method, see the recently published book On the Framers’ Method: How the Electoral College and the Hamilton Method Can Defeat Populism and Tyranny.
