For two years, the election has been gathering material and momentum like a political avalanche advancing on the world.

It seems that everywhere you look, you will be confronted with signs of the process: red-blue Obama posters, bumper stickers and pins rest on dorm room walls, bus stops, cars and jackets. Evidence of anti-Palin lampooning crops up in both likely and unlikely places, uniting ideological foes from the Left and Right. Adamant Obama/Biden, McCain/Palin and even Ron Paul stickers look like they’ve pasted themselves onto every available (and unavailable, if you count freeway overpasses) surface.

Today, voter turnout’s likely to reach record numbers as the “high stakes” stir up even the apathetic. Facebook statuses (stati?) vehemently urge citizens “to walk the walk,” anxiously remind users “not to forget to vote” and criticize those whose views may conflict with their own (”Jane Smith is sad and disappointed the people she respected are voting yes on x and no on y. How could they?!”).

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s just decidedly not voting. Yet there are people who aren’t going to the polls today. Faced with a set of options they find dissatisfying, they’re not choosing a candidate. Or, because they think their vote is ineffective, useless, or silly, they’re not casting it. Thinking the existing system fundamentally flawed, they’re not aiding in its maintenance.

Gavin McInnes is one such non-voter. The 38-year-old Ottawa native, Montreal educated and Williamsburg transplant who’s a vegetarian, co-founded Vice magazine, started Street Carnage, gave us the satirical gift of Sophie Can Walk and recently became a U.S. citizen, is leery of taking part in what he sees as the voting debacle.

On the phone, we discussed his take on the whole thing:

Did you used to vote in Canada?

I voted once. It was an empty vote. I wrote nothing in the ballot.

If you abhor the vote in either place, why change to, or add another, citizenship?

I live in New York and love America. I think it’s a great place. I’ve been here nine years. Why become a citizen? Well, traveling and voting. I’m not registered under a party. I’m not registered at all. Since voting’s out, I can say that with a green card, you can’t leave the country for more than six months. Once you’re a citizen, you can leave for as long as you want.

Why no vote, in general and this time?

Voting’s lame. I don’t understand why all these people CARE. I get all these emails from friends and people I respect, urging me to vote and to get out for Obama. Those emails embarrass me. They think Obama’s different. They keep talking about “hope” and “change,” but all these politicians act like they’re at a karaoke session. Their ideas and speeches are pre-written by their strategists. None of them [the politicians] can be trusted.

Just because you’re voting for someone, and he wins, doesn’t mean you’re going to get who you voted for. You never know who you’re going to get. If I were blind and couldn’t hear, I would think Clinton was a fiscal Conservative. While he was in office, he spent little. Bush has spent like a Democrat. Politicians lie. You think Obama will keep any of his promises?

All politicians are the same to me. They’re all in it for the vote.

It doesn’t matter who wins?

Go into a coma for four years, check what happened with Iraq and the economy, and you won’t be able to tell who was president.

People think there’s a danger of overturning Roe v. Wade, but that wouldn’t happen. The average American doesn’t want that. The idea that Obama somehow equals equality, the end of war, change and friendship is so childish. It’s the kind of thing people with Liberal Arts degrees talk about who never do their research. They took women’s studies and philosophy of self, and they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s a quagmire we’re stuck in. You should hear the level of discourse they engage in when they hang out. “Sarah Palin’s such a bitch. We should kick her in the cunt.” That’s what they can come up with while talking politics? Her resume looks pretty similar to Obama’s when it comes to experience.

There’s so much insincerity. These people threw “debate parties” to feel educated and involved. I went. You know what happened? They spent the whole time hanging out and drinking wine. No one even watched the debates. My friend David Choe, the muralist and graffiti artist, is voting for Obama and made one of the posters. [Even though] he made the poster on a lark, I keep wanting to say, “You know, Obama wouldn’t let you spray paint whales on a wall, David.”

[Moving away from David to the Obama-obsessed:]

They’re too scared to admit they’re ignorant. They think they’ll be racists if they don’t vote for Obama. But it’s reverse racism to vote for him based on that reason.

[Elaborating on the issue of racism:]

People are too selfish not to vote for someone based on that criteria. If you want something, you’ll throw a temper tantrum to get it. Company, money, friends, you’re not going to deny yourself that based on race. You’ll think “friends for me!” If you don’t like Black people, but you think Obama will be the best thing for you, you’ll vote for him. If you don’t vote for him, you’re not a racist, you just don’t agree with him.

Do you think, as many say, things have gotten worse and the country needs rescuing?

People always talk about how bad things are. The economy’s gone up 45 degrees since we’ve been recording data. Life expectancy’s really high. There’s a lot of talk that everyone’s getting cancer, but it’s just that the names have changed and people talk about it now. Before, if someone died of cancer, folks would say “she passed,” but now that there’s a name for it, everyone seems to have it. Medicine is great. Water’s never been better. Fluoride’s good for our teeth. Besides people talk about how bad the education is and how it needs funding. Well, funding doesn’t affect people’s grades. It’s that vague Liberal Arts bullshit. My dad would never have put up with that. I doubled in English and Women’s Studies in college, but there wasn’t a semester that I didn’t have to take MATH. He valued a traditional education, and a lot of these liberals just have vague terms for things.

Is there anything else about peer campaigning that bothers you?

There’s no one in New York who doesn’t dislike Sarah Palin. New York belongs to Obama. He’s going to win in that state. So why are they campaigning there? Most people agree, so…

So would you call yourself someone who’s disinterested in politics?

No, definitely not. People think this whole “not voting” thing is apathy. It’s not. I’m not saying no to politics, I just don’t think taking part in this particular act is helpful. But I’m really interested in politics.

This is the point where someone in a class would ask the theoretical question what if everyone felt like you, and no one voted?

Yeah but it doesn’t work like that. It wouldn’t happen. Maybe if nobody voted they’d rethink the two party system. The big picture is the way things are TODAY is lame. None of them can be trusted. Penn JiIlette (of all people) seems to get it. So does John Stossel (see embed in the link to the article I wrote about it recently.)