2024 will be the 6th time I have the opportunity to cast my vote for President of the United States.

This journey began in 2000 when I first turned 18 and I voted the way most of us did at that age, based on who our parents supported. As the years have went on, I believe we would have ended up voting nearly the same in every election, save for the fact that dad eventually just gave up and stopped. I feel as though I am on the same path and I’m not sure how to feel about it.

It appears as though the field for 2024 will look identical to the one in 2020, with Biden serving as the incumbent and Trump as the challenger this time around. Just to make my position on the candidates clear, I am, at best, ambivalent about Joe Biden’s performance. I, like most of the country, am scared that he is going to end up dying during a second term, and the resulting chaos would throw gas on the dumpster fire that already is American politics.

I have never hated a candidate more than I have hated Trump since 2016, and I’ve voted twice already to express my disapproval of his running in the first place. It wasn’t because I believed in the Democratic party or their candidate, it was in protest and to take away points from the other team. He is a terrible human being and he does nothing to hide who he is, in fact, he wears it like a badge of honor. He has no business holding the most powerful office on the planet, but we get the president we deserve and one round might not have been enough for us.

2024 feels like it is going to be another vote with the exact same goal in mind. I have only grown in my disdain for Trump and I can’t stand idly by and do nothing. The only rational thing to do is vote for the other party who stands a chance at beating him, and it is the only thing I can do that will make a potential difference.

I have grown tired of this routine, though, and the games that Washington plays in general with no regard for how it may affect the people who they pretend to represent. I want to opt out of this system, but I don’t want to feel culpable in a second Trump term. I don’t have strong feelings of support for the Democrats or their lack of a message besides “It’s not our fault, it’s theirs.” That isn’t a platform and eventually it’s gonna stop working on the people from either side. I don’t have blind faith in any party, but I do have an unmitigated hatred for one of the candidates so I am going to do anything I can to vote against him.

I hope that 2024 will be the last time that I protest vote, and if I feel nothing about the candidates in 2028, I will officially stop voting entirely and begin my disconnect from this system. Barring some spectacular specimen of humanity ever runs and deserves my vote, that can be it for me.

Just once, though, I’d like to feel as though I’m voting for the right person for the job and for the right reasons, to support the best candidate for the job. I don’t think it is too much to ask, but politics is one thing I think I’m done trying to understand.