kuronachaaaaaan:

Thing that really annoys me about people choosing to abstain from voting between Trump and Clinton is that, like…

I’m from Scotland, and I abstained from voting in Brexit. About whether or not the UK should leave the European Union.

My logic at the time I felt was sound. I didn’t know much about either side, and I felt that to vote based on what little knowledge I did have would be stupid. I felt that if you were going to vote for something so important, you should know enough about the thing before going into it.

Abstaining from voting in Brexit is one of the biggest regrets I have.

The night before the results came in I was getting more and more worried. I was talking to other people in Britain about it and following websites and… and I was really getting worried. I was really starting to hope that my country wouldn’t be stupid enough to vote us out the EU. Everyone had been telling me I should vote; not even what to vote for, just that I should vote and not let it go to waste. I didn’t listen. I had remained sound in my judgement that you should only vote if you have enough knowledge about what you’re voting for.

The next morning the results came in. Brexit had won. We were getting removed from the EU - not immediately of course; only over the course of the next two years, it’d take a lot of time to sort that out. But I was distraught. Why did we leave the EU? What was the point? What did it really get us? What was the reasoning behind the people voting to leave? I really wished I had voted. But no, all throughout; I had remained sound in my judgement that you should only vote if you have enough knowledge about what you’re voting for.

As the day and the next few days and the next few weeks went on it got worse. UKIP - an extremely racist party - had been one of the main forces behind voting for Brexit, so it felt like it was a huge victory for them. All across the country a bunch of racist people felt like they had won and felt… I don’t know, suddenly felt justified. You heard reports about them telling people of any other nationality more and more to ‘go home’ or whatever. You heard just so much racist shit happening across the country. When I looked at the poll results, I got even more pissed. Scotland had in a landslide voted to stay in the EU. London had in a landslide voted to stay in the EU. The entire age group under 50 had in a landslide voted to stay in the EU. But instead the rest of England and the age group over 50 had won. They’d taken the vote. More older racist people had voted than younger, and they got what they wanted. There were articles everywhere about how, essentially, the older generation that wouldn’t get to live to really see how this had turned out had ruined the future of the younger generation - our generation. My regret couldn’t be higher; but no, at the time, I felt sound in my judgement that you should only vote if you have enough knowledge about what you’re voting for.

And I’m seeing this happen again in America, but to an even more ridiculous extent. I wouldn’t even be able to use the excuse of not having enough knowledge of what to vote for; because it’s so obvious and in-your-face of who’s the worst of the two. If you don’t vote for Hillary and Trump wins, you’re going to be worrying the night before. If you don’t vote for Hillary and Trump wins, you’re going to question why the fuck that happened the morning the results are announced. If you don’t vote for Hillary and Trump wins; you’re going to find your entire country being more disgustingly racist than ever before, the older generation having a victory they’ll never live to enjoy and instead ruin it for you, and find older, primitive, idiotic parties fueled by hate getting more traction than they should ever be allowed to. 

Please don’t do what I did. Please vote for Hillary. I don’t care how bad she might be; when the morning of the results come, you’re going to wish you voted for her. If nothing else, vote so that you don’t feel the immense regret and guilt in your stomach I now do.