Juan González: Sitting Out This Election Would Be a Mistake, Just as It Was in 1968

AMY GOODMAN: So, Juan, this is Election Day. It is the last day of voting in the United States.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, Amy, it is. And, you know, it’s at times like this everyone has to take stock, even though, clearly, a vote is not the main determinant of social change in the country. And I know that many progressive and first-time voters have faced an excruciating dilemma this year, a choice between two unsatisfactory candidates, especially for those Americans who are outraged by our government’s continued support for Israel’s yearlong genocidal assault on Gaza and all the bombings and assassinations that Israel has conducted across the Middle East. So, I guess it’s understandable that many have refused to vote for either of the candidates or have chosen instead third-party candidates or just to sit it out.

But this is not the first time Americans have faced such terrible choices. I recall back in 1968, when I was just in my early twenties and the country faced a choice between Republican Richard Nixon and the Democrat Hubert Humphrey. Another terrible war was raging in Vietnam, that would eventually take 2 million lives of Vietnamese. And there was war crimes being committed back then directly by the United States, the use of napalm and Agent Orange and massive bombing of civilian areas in Vietnam. And at home, Nixon was using racial rhetoric about law and order, clearly directed at protests, massive protests by Black Americans, just as Trump today is using racist imagery against immigrants from Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean. And Nixon was promising to end the war in Vietnam if he got elected. And so, many of us refused to vote in that election. And, of course, Nixon prevailed, thus paving the way for the modern right-wing shift in U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Instead of ending the war, Nixon expanded it. He invaded Cambodia and Laos, and the killing continued in Southeast Asia for another six years.

And it would take many years for some of us to realize we had made a big mistake in sitting out that election. And I don’t claim to judge what people are doing now, but I just would counsel those who still haven’t made their decision, that making these decisions at the time of election may be difficult but sometimes necessary to do to open up the way for possible change in the future.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to look today at elections across the country, from House to Senate races to mis- and disinformation campaigns around the country and the possibility of challenges to the entire certification process. Tonight, Democracy Now! we’ll be doing a four-hour special at democracynow.org and on radio and television stations across the country from 8:00 Eastern Time to midnight. We’ll pick it up again at 8:00 in the morning Eastern Standard Time to 10:00 in the morning, an expanded two-hour show tomorrow. But right now, when we come back, Donald Trump laying the groundwork to challenge the results again if he loses to Kamala Harris. We’ll speak with New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg. Stay with us.