This one made it into the book. I wrote the original account in 2000, on election night — the Gore-Bush election, the one that ended with Florida and Supreme Court intervention and a recount that still bothers people depending on which version of history they prefer. I published the reminiscence in 2012, when it felt like the appropriate moment to place that night in context.
I voted for Ralph Nader. The nice old lady at my polling place let me vote without ID after I told her I’d lost my wallet. I still don’t know if that vote was counted.
What I remember about election night is that it looked like a Monday Night Football game. The big screen, the running score in the upper right corner, the commentators filling time. I’d never seen it staged quite like that. I watched with my roommates and we watched the lead change hands all night, and eventually we watched Florida get called and then uncalled, and eventually we went to sleep not knowing, and in the morning it was still not resolved.
The essay isn’t really about who won. It’s about what that night revealed about the system the election was happening inside. A country where millions of people are structurally excluded from voting — felony disenfranchisement, homelessness, poverty, registration failures — and then stages the selection of its leadership as a sporting event. The spectacle and the exclusion function together. They reinforce each other.
I was a Marine Corps veteran who voted Nader and watched the two-party system successfully bully a third of its potential coalition back into line through fear. A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. It worked well enough that we’re still running the same play. The day the USA began to die is an argument, not a date. The essay makes the case for what that argument is.
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*This piece was expanded and collected in [Not My America: A Stranger in a Strange Land](https://www.amazon.com/Not-My-America-Stranger-Strange-ebook/dp/B0G3C44X7D/) — essays about America observed from the outside, by someone who left and couldn’t quite believe what he found when he looked back. Available in Kindle and paperback.*
**[Get Not My America on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/Not-My-America-Stranger-Strange-ebook/dp/B0G3C44X7D/)**
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**You might also like:** [Anarchy as Religion – Religious Anarchy in Social Context](https://www.vagobond.com/anarchy-as-religion-religious-anarchy-in-social-context/), [The Internet Isn’t What We Thought It Would Be….](https://www.vagobond.com/the-internet-isnt-what-we-thought-it-would-be/), [Using Religion to Save the Environment](https://www.vagobond.com/using-religion-to-save-the-environment/)
*Browse the full CD Damitio catalog at [indignified.com/books](https://indignified.com/books)*
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My books don’t fit in any neat box — because they’re about people who feel something huge is missing… and actually go look for it. Some even find it.
Dive into the full catalog and see which story hits you hardest. CD Damitio on Amazon.
CD Damitio writes at indignified.substack.com — essays on utopias, dystopias, and the spaces between. Free to read. No algorithm, no sponsored content. His books can be found on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/stores/CD-Damitio/author/B001JP7NWA
CD Damitio writes INDIGNIFIED — utopias and dystopias explored. Free to read.
