Britt Bateman is a student at NCCU in Durham, North Carolina.
My entire life I’ve been hearing the same old argument every election cycle—that this is the most important election of my lifetime. But for me, getting involved in politics started long before I was old enough to vote.
I was 13 when Trump was elected, and as a young queer teen, his policies and their aftermath shaped my adolescence. From building “the wall” to the storming of the capitol, the right wing has been on the offensive. At 17, I went to my first protest in response to the murder of George Floyd. I heard stories of my friends getting shot by rubber bullets and tear gassed in Raleigh, North Carolina for peacefully protesting against racist policing. A few months ago I saw our Democratic Governor, Roy Cooper, rise to national attention because he was among the few who were being considered for Kamala’s VP pick. This is the same governor who called the National Guard on protestors. Harris went with Democratic Governor Tim Walz, who similarly called the National Guard to teargas and terrorize people protesting the murder of George Floyd.
A few months later, in November of 2020, I decided to join Socialist Alternative to continue the fight against racism and all forms of oppression. Since then, I have spent the majority of my free time engaging in grassroots political organizing because I want to be a part of building a better world. In the time that I have been politically active, Democrats like Eric Adams have continued to push “law and order” policing, and police budgets across the country have continued to be inflated. Democrat-led cities like Minneapolis made empty promises to defund the police, then turned around and did the opposite. I used to think that we needed to vote for these Democrats because the threat of Trump was too high, and I needed to vote for the “lesser evil”.
Then in 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned. I spent all of my energy organizing and speaking at protests while I watched Democrats turn a potential movement into a get-out-the-vote campaign, just like they did with BLM. I learned that Democrats like Obama ran on codifying Roe, and they had every opportunity to make it the law of the land while in control of both the Senate and the House! I also learned that Roe v. Wade was won in the first place by mass collective action in the 60s and 70s, in the face of a Republican Supreme Court majority under Nixon.
It’s insulting to have my rights be used as fodder for elections. Democrats guilt trip working people into voting for them every 4 years and I’m simply tired of it. The reason why we have a 12-week abortion ban in NC, and the reason why two people have already died due to abortion restrictions is because of the willful inaction of the Democrats.
This month marks over one year of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza that has more recently unfolded into a catastrophic regional war. Kamala will carry the torch of US imperialism and continue to talk out of both sides of her mouth regarding the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. During the presidential debate she made it clear to the world that her first concern among the 40,000+ slaughtered Palestinians is Israel’s “right to defend itself”. The Israeli regime has turned hospitals into targets, which has made it impossible to count the dead, let alone treat the injured. The US continues to give BILLIONS in aid to Israel, while knowing aid to Gaza is being deliberately blocked.
As a trans man, I understand that the threat of Trump taking control of the White House cannot be understated. And still, under a Democratic presidency, there’s already been hundreds of anti-trans, right-wing bills sweeping the nation, including here in North Carolina. I’ve been on hormones for over 2 years and if Trump wins that access to life saving medical care could be taken away from millions like myself.
In the face of this, Kamala Harris has refused to make a stance supporting transgender people. In a recent interview she pledged to “follow the law” with trans healthcare, distancing herself further from the previous empty promise of “seeing and loving” trans youth. Kamala Harris doesn’t see upholding my rights as electable, but even if she did cynically pander to the trans community, we would still be under attack. To not only win back the rights we have lost, but to actually be liberated, will take cis and trans workers alike engaging in mass protests, strikes, and other direct actions.
As long as we continue to have two pro-war anti-worker parties, our rights and standards of living will continue to be chipped away. That’s why for my first presidential election, I cast my first protest vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Every vote for the Democrats or Republicans is a vote for the status quo—bombing Palestinian children, exploiting native and migrant workers, and destroying our planet. Both parties are run by corporations and are ultimately unreformable.
The Green Party is not the new party we urgently need, one that actively takes up a movement-building approach in between election cycles. But I voted for anti-war candidate Jill Stein because she doesn’t have corporate donors and she doesn’t represent business as usual. We ultimately need to get organized beyond the ballot box, which is why I’m an active member of an international socialist organization. Voting in this election is not the whole change we need, but rejecting both billionaire parties on a left-wing basis is a first step.