At 18, I’m an undecided voter. Here’s why.

This is the first presidential election in which I’m old enough to vote. When I think about it and talk to my friends, one feeling rises above all others: hopelessness.

To me and many of my peers, when considering Donald Trump and Joe Biden, there is no “right” choice. So instead, I feel forced to decide which candidate will cause the least amount of damage, which is not how I want to place my first presidential vote.

Even if I felt ready to pick a candidate based on that metric, how would I even do it? Even if a particular candidate would cause less damage to me or my family, they may inflict more on people around the world, such as in Gaza. Who am I to decide that?

I was 15 years old during the election of 2020, and the adults around me made it feel like a life-or-death situation, and rightfully so. As an already politically active teenager, the stakes felt deeply personal.

The appointments of Brett Kavanaugh in 2019 and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 to the U.S. Supreme Court unnerved my household, which is led by my parents, who are gay. Having only been legally married since 2013, the thought of losing that right and returning to the past — both legally and personally — was terrifying. We canvassed, made phone calls, and protested during Trump’s four years in the White House, and yet, we were still petrified by the notion that he had another chance to win. When Biden was elected, there was a sense of relief in my household and among our extended family, communities, and neighborhood.

However, that relief has not lasted. I am just as on edge in this election as I was in the last but for different reasons.

Less than a month after I turned 18 and became old enough to vote, Israel was attacked by Hamas. I am Jewish; my family arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, fleeing from pogroms and poverty in Eastern Europe. I fast for Yom Kippur, light the candles for Hanukkah, and listen to the stories of our scrappy ancestors at Passover. After the Hamas attack, I read articles about the history behind the land and the post-World War ll influx of Jewish Europeans to the area. I had absolutely no idea how complex and messy Israel’s history has been, and how long Palestinians have been trying to have their story heard.

My recent education on the topic has wholly changed this election for me. I genuinely believe this moment is my generation’s defining moral crisis, equivalent to the civil rights movement or the fight against apartheid in South Africa.

I am just as on edge in this election as I was in the last.

In Biden’s decision to continue to support Israel, he has crossed a line I am struggling to look past. The slogan “Vote blue no matter who” doesn’t move me anymore.

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But voting for Trump is not an alternative for me. As always, he is unclear about what he actually will do in office, and doesn’t seem to want to stop the massacre in Gaza. He is dangerous either way and not just in terms of his international policies.

Consider Project 2025, a dangerous plan for America suggested by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The plan would create an all-powerful executive branch, weaken federal agencies, and firmly establish people and policies that embrace a right-wing agenda. This genuinely scares me.

Unsurprisingly, every single objective of Project 2025 is the opposite of my political and social ideology. I don’t think enough people are talking about this, including many of Trump’s supporters, especially those who don’t identify as extremely conservative.

While I believe Biden has mishandled the war on Gaza, I know Trump is dangerous to the children of the U.S., including noncitizens, the LGBTQ community, children of color, and so many more.

And suddenly, I’m stuck again.

I have seen dozens of videos on social media platforms of strangers on busy streets being asked, “Trump or Biden?” and the question is met with sighs or the answer, “Neither.” Neither are options many want and yet, once again, what can we do other than pick the lesser of two evils?

The left promises to protect marriage equality and abortion access, and I believe my parents’ marriage is worth voting for. But if I vote for Biden, what am I saying to the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians whose lives have violently and unjustly ended, with the verbal and economic support of the United States government? It feels incredibly out of touch to choose Biden over Trump to protect the personal freedoms of my family and millions of others while children are starving.

I am an undecided voter, meaning my options are between voting for Biden and not voting for president (which I know could be a de facto vote for Trump). Most of my friends feel the same way.

This is not what I thought becoming old enough to vote would feel like. In the meantime, I’ll keep talking, keep reading, and keep trying to figure out which option feels the best for me — or, at least, the least bad. And try not to feel too hopeless.

Harper Leary is a senior at a public school in Philadelphia.