My Vote. Mine.

For the record: It is the firm belief of your blogmistress that every person's vote is her or his own, to do with as she or he will.

Voting for a candidate in one of the two major parties is a legitimate choice. Voting against a candidate in one of the two major parties is a legitimate choice. Strategically voting for a third party candidate in a decidedly blue or red state is a legitimate choice. Voting for a third party candidate in a swing state is a legitimate choice. Not voting is a legitimate choice.

Some of these choices are ones I can imagine making; some of them are not. That does not mean they are not legitimate choices for individual voters to make with their votes. Period.

Shakers are welcome to discuss what their voting choices are, and why, should they be so inclined. Shakers are not welcome to condemn, insult, ridicule, dismiss, or in any way attempt to marginalize or censure other commenters who do not share those choices, nor are they welcome to accuse anyone of being "the reason" that previous candidates have lost or that future candidates will lose.

Shakers who consider engaging in this behavior would do well to remember that some of us are Democratic partisans keen to see Democrats elected, and some of us are movement progressives interested in facilitating a larger progressive movement, and sometimes those goals are mutually exclusive and sometimes they aren't, but they are equally and always legitimate interests.

Shakers who consider engaging in this behavior would also do well to remember that there are contributors and commenters who, by virtue of our sex or the color of our skin, have not been guaranteed the right to vote since this nation's inception. Some of us have mothers and grandmothers who were born without the legal right to vote. Some of us have parents or grandparents who stood on a line in the south facing cops and dogs and firehoses to fight for full enfranchisement. Some of us have friends or relatives who were disenfranchised during the last election. And maybe that (unfinished) history makes it a wee bit harder for some of us to cast a vote for someone who trades on sexism or racism.

Your blogmistress, had she been born only 54 years earlier, would have been born without the legal right to vote. That history, that fight, is in every vote I cast. My vote. Mine.

I don't tell you what to do with yours. Don't tell me what to do with mine.

And kindly don't make me say this again.

Carry on.