90 DAYS, 90 REASONS

REASON 20: Think of the alternative.

This is specifically meant for the voters who voted for Obama and are disappointed in him and subsequently on the fence about voting for him or resigned to not voting for anyone at all.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of legitimate reasons why you should not vote for Obama. You were lied to, seduced by yet another smooth talking politician who promised you hope and change. Although let’s be honest, short of electing a born-again monkey with Down syndrome, anyone who replaced Bush would be considered “a change."

And yes, after three years of Obama, we still live in a country with an ever-peeling veneer of “democracy” that is run by and for the moneyed power brokers and their vested interests. A country where cancer patients smoking medicinal marijuana in the privacy of their home participate in a criminal offense, but knowingly manipulating the markets and stealing from pension funds goes not only unpunished, but lucratively rewarded.

And true, we still live in the most violent first world country on earth, with increasingly lax restrictions on the freedom to buy assault weapons online. And we still spend more of our precious, decreasing tax dollars on “defense” than the next ten countries combined.

And right, it is accurate to say that gay couples are still treated like second, actually make that third class citizens who, in some cases, can’t provide a loving home to beaten and abused foster kids stuck in a rotating door of loveless “families” headed by abusive and psychotic welfare queens, simply because they’re “fags.”

And unquestionably, the banks, insurance companies, brokerage houses, and really all financial institutions have gotten away virtually untouched with the biggest theft of the people’s money since Rome was sacked by the Visigoths.

Oh my god…I could keep going like this into the next morning.

So let me tell you why you should hold your nose, take a deep breath, and swallow the bitter pill of voting for a rather ineffective disappointer-in-chief—because of the alternative. And the alternative in this case is an exceptionally heartbreaking example of a potential leader of the “free” world.

Mitt Romney is a craven, out-of-touch, capitalist robot (and not the fun kind either) with an understanding and compassion for the working class sourced from brief, sweeping platitudes told to him by his staff just before having to meet one of them. He doesn’t give a shit about you…or your mom, or your friends, or your children. I mean, he cares in the sense of, “you shouldn’t have to be so poor if you really, truly work hard. That’s why I want to be your president.” But his ideas are, ironically, about weaning the very people his policies displace, off the welfare teat.

In no small part, the voters that Romney appeals to are part of a backwards, ignorant electorate who truly believe that our current president is a Kenyan Marxist with an evil plan to let Muslim fundamentalists take over the world while he gleefully gives the good Christian Right’s money he’s stolen to lazy niggers and spics. They so desperately want FILL-IN-THE-BLANK in and Obama OUT! Many of these folks, left to their own devices, would make teaching certain parts of science that contradict the Bible illegal and punishable by jail time. They would: defund and then outlaw certain aspects of women’s healthcare, officially strip gay people of what little hard-fought rights they have won and now “enjoy,” and defund what little public funds there are for the arts (created by “fags” and “left-wing radical hippies”). That’s what they want to do and would certainly be more emboldened to do with a potential eight years of right-wing, conservative rule.

History provides a very succinct, undeniable look at what these two parties would (try) to do if in power. Take a look and, when faced with the alternative, well…please vote Obama in 2012.

—David Cross
New York, New York

90 DAYS, 90 REASONS

THANK YOU, AMERICAN VOTERS.