Elections have consequences, and it’s now our time to vote
I remember this like last night, I was on an old PC, connected to an AOL dial-up connection, and waited anxiously for the cnn.com page to load on November 7th, 2000. I was pursuing my Post Graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago at that time. I was relatively new to US politics and I arrived just a couple of years ago, in the fall of 1998. Though I was naive about politics, I read enough to know that Al Gore was a better successor to Bill Clinton than George W Bush. George W Bush never held a decent job, and his rise to Governor of Texas was directly a result of his name recognition. Al Gore, on the other hand, was the Vice President of the United States and spoke with authority on science, technology, foreign policy, and world affairs. To me, there was no contest between the two, and never realized the power of George W Bush’s charismatic personality. Most Americans saw Bush, who admits he used to drink too much, arguably became our 43rd president because, as polls showed, he was the candidate people would rather have a beer with because apparently, the Commander-in-Chief should be a regular beer-drinking guy just like you and your friends. Beer Drinker in chief or a proven diplomat? Not a big contest, in my naive mind of the year 2000.
The major news channels announced Al Gore as the projected winner of Florida, I celebrated with friends. When they later changed this to GW Bush, I freaked out. When ultimately decided to leave this race “too close to call” on November 8th, 2000, I got anxious and fervently checked news during my breaks, in the night, and frankly got obsessed with hanging chads, and floating ballots, and even started learning about Florida State Legislature and their Secretary of State, Katherine Harris. What followed is a month of nail-biting events that most democrats will never forget in their lifetime. Eventually, George W Bush was announced as the President-Elect of The United States after the Supreme Court Decision to halt recount on December 8th, 2000. While there were many twists and turns in this event, and some questionable ballots and practices, according to the public record, Al Gore would have ended up becoming the President Of The United States if five hundred and thirty-eight votes. Effectively, five hundred and thirty-seven votes separated Bush from Al Gore after all the counts and recounts of ballots in Florida that year.
For younger generations that did not have the “luxury” of living through the years 2000–2008, many catastrophic events could have been prevented if 537 more democrats voted that night.
Bush-Cheney administration led the nation from a budget surplus under the Clinton-Gore presidency to a deficit budget, eventually resulting in the financial crisis of 2008.
GW Bush administration invaded Iraq under the false premise of Weapons of Mass Destruction and created a collapse of the Mideast dynamic between Iraq and Iran. This unnecessary war resulted in over 200,000 deaths of Iraqi civilians and the deaths of over 4400 patriotic US soldiers as well. In addition to the countless deaths, the aftermath of the war resulted in the creation of ISIS and the eventual carnage that resulted in crisis across the midwest.
Al Gore’s focus on climate change and global warming was replaced by GW Bush’s denial of the human impacts of climate change. This denial by GW Bush caused irreversible damage to the environment and the planet itself.
We are seeing the impacts of GW Bush’s failed policies 20 years after his fateful (and unfortunate) election. We really cannot reverse the timeline and undo the damage caused because of his administration. However, we can certainly prevent this from happening in 2020.
If you think that your vote does not matter, remember that GW Bush won the 2000 election because of five hundred and thirty-seven people like you.
If you plan to vote for a third-party candidate because your candidate did not win the democratic nomination, remember that Trump won by razor-thin margins in 2016 because people like you voted for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.
If you think you can sit out this election because your candidate will win anyway, remember that every vote counts. In 2018, Shelly Symonds (D) and David Yancey (R) received equal votes for State House 94. A lucky draw eventually elected the winner. One more ballot for the democrat would have flipped the legislature’s control from the Republican party to the Democratic party.
Elections have consequences, and your vote counts. Please vote.