Why I Vote for Individuals, Not Parties

Party affiliation matters, but only as a general guideline. What really counts are the individual's qualifications and values.

When you vote, what is the deciding factor that determines how you cast your ballet? Is it qualification, professionalism, and temperament? Do you want government programs for helping the poor, or do you vote because you want to see lower taxes and less spending?

If you’re like most Americans, you probably vote based on which party you believe better represents your values. However, my interpretation is that these ‘party values’ are often vague generalizations and largely meaningless banter aimed at setting up an ‘us vs them’ mindset.

In other words, propaganda is everywhere and is usually aimed at giving people the idea that one party is a bastion of all things good and heroic, while the other is the enemy of decency and truth. This sounds almost farfetched even to me, but if you really analyze the rhetoric that partisan pundits consistently espouse, they really do try to paint the ‘other side’ as a pure evil which they are willing to face.

“Thank god we have good people like ‘partisan politician.’ What would we do without such brave people standing up to evil?” Everyone understands that propaganda is heavy when it comes to the ‘other guys,’ but when asked to analyze their own side, they fall short of anything resembling a reasonable perspective.

It’s extremely unfortunate that generally reasonable people can fall into such extreme indoctrination, but that’s unfortunately what happens when you treat politics like team sports instead of trying to find an objective understanding of the full situation. In the end, even if the favored politician wins and enacts policies which are totally contrary to the original values of the partisan voter, they tend to ignore the bad and focus on only the good and do the exact opposite for the other candidate.

This is where you get Democrats calling President Trump a ‘fascist’ who is against immigrants, the free press, and lies about everything under the sun, while Obama dropped a bomb every 20 minutes for 8 years, flip flopped on government spying only to lie about it later, trafficked guns to Mexican cartels, targeted conservatives and tea party members via the IRS, spent billions of dollars in an unprecedented assault on whistleblowers trying to expose corruption, passed the ‘Dark Act’ which permanently destroyed GMO labeling efforts, and much, much more. However, Trump is clearly the problem. So, what about Obama? He may as well be a saint.

If the 2016 election taught us anything, it's that just because someone is affiliated with a certain political party, that doesn’t mean they will represent the values and policies typically held by the party either.

I think that it's incredibly important to base your vote on the qualifications and values of the individual candidate running for office, not necessarily their party affiliation. Party can be a general indicator of what an individual’s policies might be, but it doesn't always mean that they will live up to all of the values you expect them to.

In the election, people showed an interest in individuals over parties when they supported Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein for President. Although each of these figures are very different and three of them ran as Democrat or Republican, they showed a significant change in governing strategy from the standard Democrat vs. Republican orthodoxy.

Bernie Sanders, a "democratic socialist," represented a movement away from corporate-funded democrats to socialist progressivism, or at least until he sold out to Hillary and endorsed one of the most corrupt establishment candidates in all American history.

Jill Stein represented a similar movement to Bernie Sanders, although debatably further left and less establishment, while Gary Johnson voters were typically disaffected by Trump and all other major candidates, instead preferring as little government as possible with a new party name which can hopefully provide a new, more honest voice to the national debate.

We ended up with Trump, for better or for worse, but the political situation truly did show that Americans want choice in politics, not just a desolate selection of two generic sheep ready to dance to the same globalist tune as those who came before them before sending you off to the slaughter.

However, that’s a subject for another time. If you want to hear more about my distaste for partisan politics, follow me on Twitter, Google+, or one of the other dozen or so social media outlets that I’m on. Each follow helps me contribute to the global conversation and promote human freedom.