To Vote or Not to Vote?

Gen Z organizers and leaders have been extremely active over the last few years protesting for Palestine, Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, Climate Change, and a number of other causes.

Yet, when I find myself in conversation with my peers, we always come back to the fact that we are… exhausted. Faced with institutionalized systems that don’t have our best interests in mind, we become demoralized. A lot of us may feel like we have no control over what happens in our world. However, we still have a chance to change things by organizing ourselves and doing our best to educate others.

You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live, and what came before you.
— Kamala Harris

If you’re like me, you read that quote and instantly thought of the meme. When Harris announced that she would be taking Biden’s place in the running for President, the country collectively let out a sigh of relief. A majority of us had been hoping for a young fresh face to run for President. 

WASTEDEGO Magazine created these images to reflect on the symbolism of both the watermelon for Palestine and the coconut for Harris’s campaign.

These photos star a Persian-American model and champion the features that make her who she is.

I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself.
— Kamala Harris (At the 2024 Democratic National Convention)

And with that we were brought back down to Earth. Harris’s campaign party was doing an astonishingly impressive job at rallying young people and captivating Gen Z voters this summer. The coconut meme evolved into internet campaigns that championed the coconut as the symbol for this year’s democratic vote. And yet with just one phrase, Harris lost so many young people’s vote. A sound byte of that short phrase circulating social media was enough to discourage many potential voters from supporting her in this upcoming election. 

41 Million Gen Z young adults are eligible to vote this year. How could a democratic candidate that needs to appeal to this generation of new voters say something that goes against the collective Gen Z sentiment? We want a ceasefire! We want the colonialism and exploitation of Palestinian people and land to stop.

To be clear, it’s not a question of whether or not we support a Free Palestine. I, and an overwhelming majority of the Gen Z population, support a free Palestine.

This year over 100 universities across the country created encampments in protest. Polls taken by multiple organizations like Tisch College, Time Magazine, and The Hill show that Gen Z are aware of the ongoing genocide and support an immediate ceasefire. Social media campaigns and discussions alone show that there is a widespread positive sentiment and understanding when it comes to supporting Palestine and its people. 

However, we are the same generation that believes wholeheartedly in a woman president. We believe that the lives of our black and brown peers matter. We believe in gender equality and trans rights. But now we’re faced with a moral barrier. The idea of voting for the first woman president is amazing, until you’re reminded how she is still representative of hateful rhetoric that you don’t align with.

I struggled with this idea for weeks after watching the Democratic Convention. I support Palestine and I have walked in protests like many of my friends. Is it morally correct to vote when the rhetoric coming from both candidates is so dangerous, and doesn’t align with my values? I feel this way just being an American, but imagine how Palestinian-Americans must feel. We all live under the same banner, but we each have intersectional identities that contribute to who we are, what we believe, and our understanding of the world. I want to vote because I believe it to be my civic duty as an American citizen, but on the other hand I don’t want to vote because a part of me feels like it would be a betrayal. Have other people been feeling this way too?


Let’s take a moment to look back at what else Harris said that day. 

“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives were lost… the scale of suffering is heartbreaking.” She says she wants to end this war “such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self determination.”

And that’s when everything clicked. We are never going to have good candidates. But I would rather vote for a candidate that acknowledges that all humans around the world deserve dignity, security, freedom, and self determination. I will continue to protest and support a Free Palestine. I will continue to fight for a ceasefire. I will be vocal about the genocide and speak up until the U.S. government listens to its people, and changes its current stance on the issue. But I will also use my vote to fight for the black and brown people within this country. The trans and queer folks fighting for their rights, the women fighting for their reproductive freedom. I have decided that a vote for these demographics is a vote worth making. At the end of the day, I want to make the choice that pushes us forward to some capacity. Because fighting for people’s rights will continuously be an uphill battle, but at the end of the day…

Who is the candidate that’s going to make my endless uphill battle easier?
— @jordxn.simone (on TikTok)