By now Victoria Thompson has heard it many instances. She’s loopy. She’s throwing her vote away.
Worse, those that detest Donald Trump say she’s serving to the unscrupulous ex-president reclaim the White Home — although she’s by no means voted for him and by no means will — by refusing to again Joe Biden’s reelection.
Thompson is unabashed.
“I’ve no duty to vote for the Democratic [nominee],” mentioned the 63-year-old retiree, a Democrat for many of her life. “Their duty is to the residents. They need to put ahead a candidate that we wish to vote for.”
Individuals like Thompson, who can’t abdomen Trump or Biden, are generally known as “double-haters.” This election they’re all the fad. They very probably will resolve the presidential contest, with most coming round by November to help one of many two main social gathering nominees — even when it means holding their nostril.
However tens of millions like Thompson received’t forged a poll for Trump or Biden beneath any circumstances. Her alternative is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom she considers probably the most electable of the alternate options, giving him a 30% probability of successful the White Home.
“He’s obtained the identify recognition … and since persons are so sad with the alternatives, there’s a shot,” Thompson mentioned over lunch this week in Roseville, the Sacramento suburb the place she spent three a long time working as a mail service.
Really, most election handicappers give Kennedy nearer to a 100% probability of dropping, however irrespective of. Thompson will help the political scion even when it means serving to Trump beat Biden.
With a throaty chuckle, she describes the unruly Republican’s 4 years in workplace as “a s— present.”
However she doesn’t see the aged Biden doing any higher. “I feel he’s simply as corrupt as Trump,” Thompson mentioned. “I feel he’s simply as self-serving.”
Issues modified politically for Thompson one night time in December 2015 when she was in mattress watching “The Tonight Present.”
Jimmy Fallon’s visitor was unbiased Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was waging a long-shot bid to grab the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton, the favourite of the social gathering institution.
Thompson had supported Democrats for president her complete life, save a 1992 vote for unbiased Ross Perot. She was largely advantageous with the outcomes. “My 401(ok) was going nuts” whereas Clinton’s husband, Invoice, was in workplace, Thompson mentioned with one other deep chuckle, “so I used to be comfortable.”
However disillusionment started setting in beneath President Obama, who promised all kinds of hope and alter, together with creation of a common healthcare system that will cowl each American. “After which,” Thompson mentioned, “he didn’t give us any of it.”
Watching Sanders on late-night TV, Thompson felt one thing stir inside. He spoke of earnings inequality and a “corrupt campaign-finance system” and the way in which it favored particular pursuits and the exceedingly well-off on the expense of common employees.
Thompson mentioned she by no means heard something like that from Hillary Clinton.
She turned a volunteer for Sanders’ marketing campaign and put in lengthy hours manning telephone banks all through the Sacramento space. She received election as a California delegate to the Democratic Nationwide Conference, arriving in Philadelphia with a brightly festooned banner she created. “President Bernie Sanders,” it boldly declared amid the flowers and vines.
She hoisted the banner in defiance when Clinton supporters, together with Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee, confirmed up at a rowdy delegation breakfast. She shouted together with those that jeered Pelosi and others with cries of “Election fraud!”
Thompson’s political opinions are a stew of far-left convictions and conspiratorial beliefs, which she defined at a pizza joint in Outdated City Roseville.
She’s sure that Sanders would have crushed Clinton in California’s 2016 major, if corrupt social gathering officers hadn’t interceded. In truth, Thompson is satisfied the whole nominating combat was rigged in Clinton’s favor and Sanders solely yielded as a result of he and his spouse, Jane, have been threatened.
(When Trump echoed claims the election was stacked in Clinton’s favor and referred to as for an investigation, Sanders instructed him to again off.)
The senator delivered a conciliatory speech the night time Clinton was nominated and appeared earlier than the California delegation, urging Democrats to rally behind her. However Thompson was unmoved.
“The best way they cheated … there was no method” she was “simply going to roll over” and vote for Clinton, Thompson mentioned. As a substitute, she forged her poll for the Inexperienced Occasion candidate, Jill Stein.
Biden’s nomination in 2020 was the results of additional Democratic chicanery, Thompson insists. Amongst different claims, she mentioned the social gathering “ran as many individuals as they may” — greater than two dozen presidential hopefuls — “to diffuse the vote” and as soon as extra deny Sanders the nomination.
(That, nevertheless, drastically overstates the facility of the social gathering and vastly understates the tug of particular person ambitions.)
Thompson once more voted for the Inexperienced Occasion nominee in 2020, although she now not remembers his identify. It was Howie Hawkins.
Thompson’s assertions could also be far-fetched, however she speaks for a lot of when she laments the selection going through the nation in November.
“I’m shocked that Trump may even run at this level,” she mentioned of the all-but-certain GOP nominee, a view that many Democrats share. “I imply, he has all these authorized issues … so how’s it even attainable? It exhibits how damaged the system is.”
As for Biden, she’s satisfied — like many Republicans — that he’s properly previous his sell-by date and lacks the psychological capability to be president.
On prime of that, she mentioned, tapping a turquoise-colored fingernail for emphasis, “Grocery costs are larger than they’ve ever been. Gasoline is excessive. Persons are barely making it month to month.”
Some might imagine Thompson is nutty for believing the issues she does. Or say she’s silly to vote for Kennedy or every other candidate with no probability to win, somewhat than settling for the least-bad various and attempting to stave off one thing worse.
However none of that bothers her.
Not less than, Thompson allowed, when she places her head on her pillow at night time she’ll sleep with a transparent conscience.
