Why I May Not Vote for President

I may not vote for president. This would be a first. I always voted for president, always for the Democrat even though some of the candidates were weak – Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis. I even voted for Hillary Clinton whom I didn’t like. I came from a liberal family and my father, dear loving man, never called a conservative a conservative. He used the compound word conservative-bastard. In our tiny Brooklyn apartment FDR was God – well, if not God, then Moses.

But the 2024 presidential election has me confused, sad, bereft.

I can’t vote for Donald Trump because he tried to subvert an election result on that infamous January 6 and the events surrounding it. He is a bad guy. In Brooklyn we would have called him a bum. He is from Queens and I’m from Brooklyn. We would understand each other. He is the rich kid with a big mouth who came to our playground saying how great he was – in a loud voice. The tough Italian kids, and I mean Big Sal Cognetta, Little Sal Calia and Joey Manzo, would have kicked his ass, messed up his hair, stolen his ball and sent him home crying. And I would have loved it.

If Joe Biden were still the candidate, I definitely would not have voted for president, would have politely left the president box on my ballot blank and voted on ballot measures, voted for senator, etc. Just like I couldn’t vote for big-mouth, slimy Trump, I couldn’t vote for a walking corpse. But the Democrats threw him overboard.

Does that mean I’m voting for Harris? Not so fast.

I find her shallow, or is it facile? Correct me if I’m wrong, but since the Democrats handed her the nomination – she didn’t have to go through a primary -- she has not held a news conference, not had to answer hardball or even softball questions from a mostly adoring press who gush about her joy. What does joy have to do with it?

She flopped as a candidate four years ago. She is in favor of packing the supreme court last time I looked, or she isn’t exactly opposed to it. Bad. (Ask FDR.) She blames high prices in supermarkets on price gouging – a worn-out and tired liberal talking point. Grocery stores work on small margins. Look it up. And Harris’ idea of controlling prices at supermarkets is kind of Marxist and probably against the law.

I don’t trust her. I don’t like her cackling laugh. So, I may not vote for her, but I could vote for her if she answers serious questions and has serious policies that are not shallow and do not sound socialist. I don’t like socialism. I like the free market. I like free ideas.

It makes no difference if I don’t vote for her because she will win California. A dead dog would win California if it were to run as a Democrat. I’m not saying she’s a dead dog. I’m saying my non-vote wouldn’t count, so I’d be non-voting according to my conscience or my confusion or my sadness over the choice of candidates presented to me.

Do you face the same dilemma?