The Cost of Compromise: Voting When the Stakes Feel Personal and Global

Early voting started in Texas on the 21st. I live in San Antonio but not quite San Antonio. The county is large though so we have our pick of places to early vote. We were heading out of town and stopped at a polling center in town. It was almost a two hour wait to vote. We left. We will vote when we come back as it will still be early voting and we will do so near our home where it’s a small area with not nearly as many people. 

This “delay” got me thinking about just how complicated this vote has been for me. There’s absolutely no way I can bring myself to vote for Trump. That’s out of the question and not a point of discussion here. 

My dilemma lies with VP Harris. And not just her as a person, platform, and party candidate…but also how those who lean left politically are choosing to talk about her; how they evaluate her performance, what they expect and demand of her, as well as what they expect and demand of those who will vote for her and those who also lean left but are considering not voting for her or at all.  

The language they use to express all of this ain’t got a thing to do with me and yet, it feels very much like it has to do with me. 

Too many, in their advocacy for what I actually feel to be a just cause, are exceptionally anti-Black in their rhetoric. We aren’t your enemy, but we aren’t saviors. We cannot be everything to all people. And I feel like too many demand so much from a people who are literally trying to navigate systems that are no good to us.

At the same time, so many of us (Black folk, left-leaning folk, progressives…) will treat this election as if it boiled down to one single issue and we are either heartless and/or unintelligent to what is going on in the world.

I am a Black disabled woman, raising Black disabled children in a state that cuts Medicaid funding more and more every year. We are trying to prepare for a future that is uncertain. I have friends who have cancer who cannot afford treatment. I know people who, if they lost their job, would have devastating consequences. I was raped and became pregnant because of it. I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if I were not able to get the abortion that so many women are unable to have access to with detrimental and sometimes, deadly consequences. I could write a stack of posts for every issue that concerns me. 

And that is where it gets even more complicated, because I feel like so many are wanting me to think of solely one issue and that is the one that will make or break a candidate for me. I am not only focused on the President, I am focused on the down-ballot votes because that is where the majority of the change or damage lies. 

And yet, I cannot turn my eye to the fight of the Palestinian people. I cannot know of what they go through and not feel my heart bleed. Its just that my heart is so big it houses so much. I feel all of everything. And it all weighs on me. how can you hear of what they go through and not feel something? How can you look at the images and not feel something?

So many of us aren’t heartless or unintelligent to world events, we are bearing weight of our own and trying our best to figure out how to cast a vote that would be the most beneficial for the most people possible. Right now, my children are looking at state centers for residency when we pass if we don’t secure their future. Many policies and regulations will either make it harder or easier for us to provide better for them when we are gone. So many disabled people choose to not get married because they will lose their benefits, in the case of so many, these benefits include life saving treatment. 

There’s so much to juggle and balance. And I will say that I do not believe for one minute that we should come with a “wait and see” approach when it comes to genocide. We can and should press candidates on matters of importance. 

We don’t have a system that carries more than two “viable” candidates, and we don’t spend any considerable amount of time building up any candidates or a party that could challenge the dominance of the big two. I don’t find it advantageous to attempt to create one within the 11th hour. Staying home and not voting isn’t an option for me. Voting for Trump isn’t an option for me. Voting third party isn’t. But voting for VP Harris doesn’t feel like…

I don’t have the word. I just don’t.

I don’t have the answers, I didn’t write this for debate. I wrote this to share that this isn’t a good position to be in. Cause it feels like no matter which way you go, it’s not the right decision for someone. You will be the worst on their lists. You might even be on a few of your own lists as you try to convince yourself of the decision you just made. 

I am rambling. This isn’t complete. And yet, it is. 

Vote for who you will. But the way many progressives want to act as if there aren’t many of us capable of understanding the stakes and that we are citizens of the world really hasn’t asked themselves what does the vote mean for us? What does it mean for this person and their life? 

I got half telling me that because I have concerns about  Kamala, to include how she will handle the ongoing genocide, I must want another Trump Presidency and the other half telling me that there’s really nothing else to care about outside of the genocide. 

I don’t live a single issue life. That ain’t ever been how I lived. 

And I don’t need others to tell me what to do or what kind of person I am if I don’t move how they expect me to. I know what is at stake. 

I know. 

I KNOW. 

And it is because I know…that’s what keeps this election a source of conflict for me. 

I am telling you this, I promise you this…I am doing the best I can with knowing what I do know. And knowing what I know includes the culmination of my life’s experiences plus the heart I possess.

I don’t need you to tell me who I am. And I don’t need you to tell me how to vote.