My message isn’t as much about selling you on MY SIDE as it is trying to guide you to the best side for you and your country:

— Prioritize what’s important to you and where YOU fall on the particular issue - write a list or in your head, either way - and then compare that to all of the candidates’ priorities.

— Do your own research and formulate your own opinions. Take extra care to remove any pre-conceived notions or biases, and make sure your thoughts are your own & not just those you surround yourself with or see on TV. Try to put less weight into social issues that have no true right or wrong, as most every time you do research on those issues you’re reading/hearing someone else’s opinion .

— Think of anything that can’t be proven or has no statistical value with VERY LITTLE weight. Realize when something you come across is hyperbole and most likely exaggerated for effect and TRY not to let it sway you one way or another.

— Deal in facts only when determining the current overall health and direction of the nation > your state > your community. Use your own everyday experiences and interactions as basis of truth regarding society at large - don’t fall for rhetoric and generalizations meant to sway you like “the nation is more bigoted today than it has ever been, women are still discriminated against in the workplace, all Republicans are racist” etc. unless you’ve seen it to be true with your own two eyes. The media will have you believing that there’s multiple bloody wars between races and sexes and political parties going on outside and that everything is going wrong, when it’s quite the opposite.

— Humans have unique characteristics and values from one another, and so do humans that also happen to be politicians. Don’t assume that because a candidate has an R or D next to their name that he/she believes in the same things the rest of the party does or is known for. For instance, don’t assume the Republican candidate is pro-life and the Democrat pro-choice - it may not be true or they may not feel strongly enough either way to prioritize it. As far as social and identity politics go, both parties have changed and the stereotypes of old are no longer true (especially on the R side).

Just do the best you can at the above and everything will turn out fine no matter which way you vote.

All the ugliness lately is worrying because it’s done nothing but further galvanize most people in their partisanship. As Americans, we should want people to vote for the candidate they LEGITIMATELY feel is best for their country/state/city whether it’s an R or D next to their name; instead, we have people voting for candidates solely based on skin color, political oarty, or their sex.

There’s millions of people out there that will vote for nothing but Ds - some of which they’ve never even heard of - so they can have a feeling of “getting back” at Trump and his base because they’ve been told for 2 years that he’s a racist, or that he says mean and often rude things, or that he’s a bully, so on and so on. It has no basis in reality and even if it did, who cares as long as our country keeps rollin’ the way it is.

In the midst of all this, Dem candidates start announcing that they’re going to push for impeachment if they win the house, which sets off alarm bells on the Republican side of the aisle. Now there’s millions of THEM that will have to vote for nothing but Rs - some of which they’ve never even heard of - in order to counteract the Dems and guarantee that the duly elected president remains in office.

I can’t imagine much good that’ll come out of millions of voters voting for the wrong reasons and I think one day it’ll get so bad that it crashes the entire party system, or at least the two we have now. YOU, on the other hand, can keep your hands clean of it all and your head held high if you make your best attempt at voting for the best man or woman for the job regardless of party affiliation.

This post was edited on 9/10/18 at 12:37 am