Today, I don’t know if any of you have been paying attention, but one of the big conversations right now is around Hasan Piker expressing what a lot of us who’ve been paying attention have been thinking: if the next election comes down to Gavin Newsom versus JD Vance, we are absolutely fucked regardless of who you pick. And, a lot of people not paying attention think this is a hyperbolic statement, and it is not a statement that I have an answer to. Trump was terribly destructive to the American system. The next leader would need not just to repair the damage, but to overperform our expectations in order to meet the moment. And we are in a no-win situation deeper than we’ve ever been. I believe in electoral participation. I believe that actively participating in your democracy, if you are part of one, is essential for democracy to function. But our system has been broken by the two-party structure. I’m not a fool. I know there’s no easy way out of it. Even in terms of harm reduction, if it comes down to these two, there may not be a meaningful way out. Let’s start with something simple: there is a 0% chance a third-party candidate would win under our current system. We have not built a political structure that allows third parties to succeed. period. If you vote for JD Vance, he is a conservative and will attempt to enact conservative policies, which are harmful. Most likely, he would be a lame-duck president, unable to get much done in a meaningful way, especially because Democrats most likely will control the House and Senate. But even his inability to govern effectively would continue to hurt the country while also damaging the Republican Party. But during his time in office we would actually have to spend time building dual power, or building a third party system, or we just end up in this shit show again. If we vote for Gavin Newsom, he won’t get anything done progressively. He will be inadequate for the moment. He’s not looking to reverse what Trump did. He’s not going to abolish ICE. He doesn’t seem to stand firmly for anything beyond self-aggrandizement and he often comes across as an opportunist. He doesn’t even appear deeply committed to liberalism itself. Most likely, he would only advance the capitalistic aims of the Democratic Party, while being a moderate or even conservative on social values. And that’s what makes this worse. He’s not afraid to throw marginalized people like minorities, the poor, and trans people under the bus. and he would have the backing of the Democrat establishment to do so, as many of them are proposing we were too progressive in relation to the Kamala Harris candidacy, Which is why they believe that they lost. Which of course is not true, the reason that they lost is because nobody voted as apathy was easily what won the day. Due to the Democrats being so unpopular, being the establishment, and running such a shitty campaign. If Democrats win and fail to meaningfully improve people’s lives, it will deepen apathy. It will make people lose hope that anything good is possible. And when people lose hope in the system entirely, that damage is long-lasting, and will lead to the destruction of what’s left of our system. Because of this, no matter what we do, we may end up in a similar position. If Democrats continue acting the way they have, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t, we’re stuck in the same cycle. But the cycle if anyone is actually watching it is hurdling at great force into the ground. This is the pickle that many of us who continue to pay attention can see coming. There doesn’t seem to be a right answer. I won’t pretend I have a solution. The moment is rapidly approaching, and it feels like it may swallow us whole. And that’s the part that’s hardest to sit with. This is what Hasan sees. This is what Vaush sees. This is what many leftists see. And right now we’re struggling against well-meaning people who want change, but confuse loyalty to the Democratic Party with being truly progressive, which was never the point of our continued electoral participation.