I can hear it already.

“People like you are literally the reason why we’ll have four more years of Trump!”

Yep, I’m the lynchpin. Our future hinges on me and me alone. At least that’s how I’m treated every time I express a desire to vote my conscience. I should be used to it by now, but there’s something about this kind of rhetoric that really sticks in my craw.

I know, I know, this will be the most important election of our lifetimes just like 2016 was. I’m going to go ahead and guess that 2024, 2028, and so on and so on will be portrayed in a similar light. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. And when you decide to do your own thing make sure you’re ready for the ad hominem. It will happen.

I love politics and yet I hate it all the same. Maybe that’s just the contrarian in me speaking but I don’t buy that anymore. I’m not a contrarian. I just don’t like being called a fucking Russian Bot every time I’m critical of Democrats. They’re the so called “left wing of the possible” and yet they’re somehow not even that much. Democrats don’t get a pass in the Age of Trump.

Here in the Garden State we just re-elected Robert Menendez to the United States Senate. I was told he was the lesser evil and would reduce harm. Tell that to the people of Venezuela. Everyone who touted him as a harm reduction candidate is awfully silent on his role in all of this. Of course, I expect nothing less. I imagine not too many of them even care.

This field of primary candidates doesn’t exactly inspire hope. At least half of them are DOA and the other half…where do I start? A candidate that made her bones putting people in prison (Kamala Harris), an out of touch faux progressive policy wonk who loves markets and somehow isn’t named Hillary Clinton (Elizabeth Warren), a cranky sub-octogenarian, pseudo-socialist whose moment has likely passed (Bernie Sanders), and even though he hasn’t declared yet, America’s answer to Emmanuel Macron (Beto O’Rourke). Yeah, there are others with their hats in the ring but they all start to blend together in their collective mediocrity. My despair as well as my blood pressure only heightens as I tick off their names.

Maybe the despair is what we need. It’s motivating me to stand resolute in my convictions. No more waffling from me unless I’m at the diner on a Sunday morning.

And so here I am saying now what I will say many times of the next 20 months:

Trump sucks (duh).

I almost wish Hillary Clinton were running again because it would be more honest than the charade we’re going to get.

Democrats don’t get a pass in the Age of Trump.

They don’t get my vote either.

A Third-Party Candidate will.