I know for a fact you're older than this. If you were like 24 years old and still believed every fairy tale politics tells you, that would be one thing, but you've been around here for this entire time and there's not much excuse for it.
Ok, the thing is, I'm going, and I've talked as much $#@! about voting in the last month as anyone but PAF. I'm not going to convince you, but I'll tell you why.
I 100% do not believe Dr Paul is going to have much voice in what happens. Mostly because Dr Paul himself said he doesn't want an official position in one of the vids above. But we'll get to him.
I'm going in and voting for a few reasons.
1) We've gotten to the point where we can instantly tell whether someone is pandering or honestly believes what they're saying. Trump definitely spends a lot of time pandering, but he has surrounded himself with people who don't. Trump is also impressionable (he's been repeatedly blaming that impressionability on why he did certain things last time). If he wins, the people who are going to be surrounding him in the aftermath and taking advantage of that impressionability are all people who honestly believe what they're saying.
2) All of the people in his current orbit are against the war in Ukraine. And the one thing I've heard Trump say that I actually believe is that he wants to wind that whole chapter down. I think this is a given: if Trump wins, Ukraine ends. If Harris wins, Ukraine turns into Afghanistan. That is a certainty.
3) It's not insignificant that RFKjr is in his orbit now. Have you tried to get healthcare for anything that isn't a physical injury recently? The US healthcare system is great if you have a broken arm or need a knee replacement - magical even. But if you have literally any other problem, it is worse than useless. Am I convinced something will happen with it? No - but this is the first of many "there's a chance" things going on right now. The worst outcome for all of these is that there will be a half-hearted fight about it that gets lost in the short term but has a Goldwater/Paul effect where maybe 16 years later people will be thinking about it more. That's worth an hour of my time.
4) Vivek is in his orbit. Before I was thinking I'd vote for RFK I was excited about the idea of voting for Vivek. I have more overlap with Vivek's position than I have had with anyone since Ron Paul (not even Rand!) and he's going to be right there influencing Trump. Same category - is it a guarantee? Hell no. But it's a start, and the best start we've had since 2012.
5) Tulsi Gabbard is in his orbit. This is more of a stretch - but she's going to continue to get national attention and I think any attention paid to people who are authentic and aren't dirty slimy rotten Democrats is attention well spent. Her transition is important because it's a shift away from dirty politics as usual and toward supporting people who are actual human beings. We are being shown that we don't have to just accept the status quo. No, I don't have much overlap with her on policies. But if we can work toward a future where we as a society can have legitimate differences that we're able to discuss rationally, that's a win. Her joining the team represents a rejection of the lies, strawmanning, gaslighting, and everything else that went into our decisions not to vote for the last 12 years.
6) Joe Rogan is in his orbit. This is what pushed me over the edge. Joe Rogan is a normal dude who talks to normal dudes. He also introduces normal dudes to advanced concepts. He's objectively one of the best communicators in the world right now. And he's the current kingmaker.
As Dave Smith pointed out - if Trump wins, then the legacy media will be irreparably crippled forever. The narrative writes itself: If you do new media you win, if you rely on old media, you lose. That's pretty damned important.
"You don't hate media enough. You think you do, but you don't."
If you want to hate media enough, this is your chance.
7) Last of all there's the miniscule chance that the Elon Musk effort will bear fruit. I'm the least hopeful about this and everyone should not expect much. But you know what? It's the first time anyone has said anything this drastic since Ron Paul called for immediately axing 5 whole departments. If Elon does talk to Ron, then we may actually get close to getting something Ron was promising.
Moreover, there's already a path to follow. Argentina did it - and yes, Argentina did it half-assed according to us. But they still did it. And the world has been watching... and ignoring it. They have to, because it's working. It's objectively working.
This may - just may - be a time for that to happen in America. Again, not hopeful. But it's at least possible.
