That’s one way to look at it, but it doesn’t alleviate the fact that I tried to game a system that was already being gamed, and ended up voting against my own interests as a result.

In practice, what happened is that I wanted a candidate who offered A, B, C, and D, which was Bernie. Bernie lost the primary and we were left with a candidate that only offered A and B (Clinton), so I got angry and voted for someone else that had no chance of winning but I thought would send a message.

So she lost, and we ended up with a president who not only didn’t do any of what I wanted, but actively made life worse for me, my loved ones, and millions of other people. And I helped create that outcome when I thought I was being a better person by voting by conscience, because I thought she deserved to lose. Only I didn’t give enough consideration towards who would win when that happened, and that ended up being a bigger burden on my conscience in the end.

To take that forward to today, honorable mention to the fact that Israel became more empowered under Trump’s administration than by any other administration that preceded him, so hell, I blame myself for essentially helping to facilitate this current situation we find ourselves in, too.

It was vanity on my part, or maybe just naivete, and there’s not really another way to frame it.