Voting is an exciting thing in the U.S. It’s something we witness from a very young age, as all of the adults in our lives discuss politics and then weigh in on our future in a wonderfully democratic process. We see it other areas as well, such as voting for things in class and even on what’s for dinner on occasion. So we imagine that eighteen must be a magical age because you get to vote for something that really matters, to be a part of something big and important. For all of us that turned eighteen just in time for this election season, or within the last few years, our big moment has been rather disappointing.
When we first began the process, many moons ago, of deciding who would be the next leader of our nation, we had more options than we knew what to do with. We did a little research on some of the candidates (usually for class) and decided who we liked the best. Many of us chose a candidate based on what we actually thought, while some pretended they were die hard Trump fans, which scared us all to death (but also made us laugh at its absurdity).
We watched with slight amusement as some of the candidates we liked slowly disappeared, and we began to wonder how this might end.
By the time we knew what was happening, we were left with 2 candidates: a liar and a madman. Of course, we knew there were third party candidates, too, but I think we can all agree that they present a whole new set of problems. We were nervous, scared and a little bit confused. Had the choices always been this bad? Had we just never noticed it? No. The choices now were worse than any and we were forced to figure out how we wanted this to go down.
Several months later, many of us are just as nervous and scared and confused, but we know that it’s our civic duty to vote anyway. How can we make the decision if we don’t feel comfortable with either candidate? Should we still vote? If so, how? Do we go with the lesser of two evils? Whoever our parents are voting for? The one who seems less crazy? We don’t know what to do, and we can’t ask our parents. The situation is pretty unprecedented for them too.
The only thing we can do at this point is to consider where we don’t want the power to lie. It may be different for everyone, but we need to actually think about it for ourselves. We’re adults now, and no matter how undesirable our choices may be, we need to make one if we want to keep our nation afloat. I’m not going to tell anyone which way to vote, but I am going to tell them to vote.
Vote because you care about your life. Vote because you care about your family. Vote because it’s your right and your job. Vote because it’ll give you the right to complain later. Vote because your ballot already came in the mail if that’s what it takes. Just vote. We’re Americans. It’s what we do. And we’ve been waiting 18 years to do it. No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall on, just vote.
