Voting- Why It Matters

As this post publishes, i'm out putting signs at polling locations, putting literature on people's doors, and trying to make sure that when people wake up in the morning, they know it's time to vote. It's a fairly thankless job, but an important one. Oh sure, I'm a Democratic State Committeeman, which I guess is important, but the majority of society looks so negatively on politics that I get as many eye rolls when I tell people what I do as I get positive feedback- and that's just from my fellow Democrats. Indeed, as a society, we've come to label politics as a dirty word, and label the people who care about it as "crazy" or weird. It's much easier to ignore our politics, our government, and just cast a negative stereotype on the whole thing.

The thing is, that is intellectually lazy, or should I just call it stupid? You live in the greatest country in the world if your election day is tomorrow. You live in a country with a high standard of living, the biggest economy in the world. You live in a country with paved roads, running water, and public schools. You live in a country with the greatest military in the history of the world. You live in a country with hospitals filled with skilled doctors, a country with a Silicon Valley innovating beyond our wildest dreams, a country with police and firemen who protect our streets every day. You have a right to a trial by your peers here and a right to question your government freely. We have child labor laws, an FDIC backing up our banking system, and an interstate highway system that stretches from ocean to ocean. We have grand national parks and government buildings, beautiful plains, and skyscrapers. People literally die trying to get into our country, while others dream of just visiting. We have a really, really great country here in the United States. It's a beautiful, diverse place. We like to credit that to all sorts of things, but one of the main reasons we have that is we vote. We have peaceful elections. We have the right of determining our own direction. Strongmen don't roll into our capitol with guns to establish a new government. We do it at the ballot box. I get that it's easier to view the public corruption, the infighting and bickering, and failures of bad policy and hate politics. I get that it's very difficult to understand many of the issues that are debated. I get that it's easy to dismiss the poor media coverage of our politics and decide that it's not worth it. I even get that the idea of two parties feels really constraining. Politics are hard, no doubt. Politics might not always be fun. It may be much easier to watch some sitcom on your TV than to follow the news and form hard and fast political opinions. I understand all of that, and I feel for the people who choose to check out as a result. I also understand that our political world matters, and we all live in it no matter how hard we try. I also know that we have a great country, and it's worth engaging as a citizen to determine if we will continue to be.

No one who is out doing what i'm doing tonight lacks passion. Republicans and Democrats alike that become active are passionate people, who care deeply about the country. At some point in your life, if you really get into this stuff, you decide you care about something genuinely enough to do something about it. Sure, there are those over-ambitious types that will sell-out their own beliefs to gain power, but even those people have a passion- even if it's their belief in themselves. The overwhelming majority though get into this because they care about an issues, a cause, or humanity enough to fight for it. For me, it was the 2000 election and the Iraq War that drove me into politics, but over time it became economic justice, the environment, our education system, and our health care that drove me. Even now I find new causes, from animal rights to immigration, and I find myself engaging in them. It is what drives us after all- our passion. Otherwise, why the hell would I be out in the dark on a November night doing this?

Your vote is the one thing you have to drive the direction of the world you live in. You may not think an election for your township's Supervisors or Constable matter, until it does someday. You may not feel like the government impacts you, but it does. It impacts you when your local school taxes go up, or when your child's teacher is laid off. It impacts you when you hit a pot hole that didn't get fixed because of budget cuts, and you have a flat tire. It impacts you when your child develops asthma from breathing polluted air. It impacts you when you are the victim of racial profiling, or when there is no police officer to come help you in your time of need. Government impacts you in every part of your life, all the time. You may not recognized it, but you would if it weren't there.

So tomorrow, you'll have a choice in front of you- vote or not. If you don't, you cede any power you have over the direction of the world around you to someone else who does. If you do vote, you gain that power by showing up- your voice is augmented by the lacking of other voices. Your opportunity to vote tomorrow is something that literally billions around the world wish they had. The least you could do is accept that privilege.