Nothing To Vote For-   Twelve Steps To Voter Recovery

It’s time to be honest with ourselves, to see voting for what it is--a facade.
It’s time to make a clean break and start rebuilding our understanding of civil society and our roles within it.
It’s a tough road but here are some steps to guide you.
Step 1. Admit you have a problem. Your problem is that you are in an abusive relationship with your political party. Your party does not love you. Your party does not deserve you. You deserve better than your party.

Step 2. Break up with your party. Sure, your party might say nice things to you sometimes. It might make you feel special. But that is only because it needs you in order to get what it wants.

Step 3. Develop your own point of view. You don’t need a party to tell you what matters to you. You decide what is important, what is good, what is evil. Deny the false dichotomy that has been foisted upon you, that tells you that you must choose either Right or Left.

Step 4. Don’t settle. You do not have to choose between two evils. You can save yourself for the right candidate. You can hold out for the good.

Step 5. Make it official. Change your voter registration to unaffiliated. 102

Step 6. Take a fearless look at the political landscape. Accept that much of what you have been told about politics is simply not true.

Step 7. Accept that voting has never allowed you to make a positive difference in the world. That it has, on the contrary, caused you to spend valuable time and energy in a futile way.

Step 8. Develop a new code of conduct. Voting is not a moral obligation. The only obligation is to work for the common good. Voting for lesser evils does not work for the common good, but against it.

Step 9. Stop voting. If anything is going to change the system, it isn’t the vote.

Step 10. Educate yourself. Start reading books about the issues that are most important to you.

Step 11. Do what you can, when you can. Take all of the energy you ever spent on political activity and spend it on something else, something worthwhile.

Step 12. Help others. You are not alone. There are many like you. They too have been abused by their political party. They need you to show them how a sane, self-respecting citizen can continue to exist without voting.

Daniel Schwindt