You know what's amazing? Even Facebook has chimed in on this year's election. With a simple reaction on a live video, you can state who you think is winning the election — which is this Tuesday, November 8, in case you've been living under a rock.
I've put in my due diligence, I've watched my CNN, my Anderson Cooper, my Don Lemon... I know who I'm voting for, and I'm excited about doing so. But, a lot of my friends are not.
We are a candidate's dream. We are "the young voter" or "the millennial voter" as some news outlets have described us. We are apart of perhaps the strongest voter demographic there is right now. And yet... we couldn't be more unenthusiastic about voting.
The Huffington Post has two pages of articles about the millennial voter and while I haven't skimmed them all, some titles read: "The Millennial Vote: A Turning Point" and "Will Millennials Become The Next 'Greatest Generation' Or The Next 'Lost Generation'? and "Congresswoman Asks Black Millennials Not To 'Give The One-Finger Salute' And Stay Home On Election Day." But, most importantly, "Millennials Taking Power." In the article, author Mark Gerzon quotes a young millennial, who is taking the often talked about, never fully realized notions of "hope," "change," and "togetherness" into his own hands.
“Today, young people see an unresponsive and inefficient set of political institutions and opt out of our democracy." — Sean Long
I chose this quote as an anchor for this article for one reason and one reason only: whatever you do on Tuesday, get out and vote.
I could remind you that there are people who protested for your right to vote, that there are people who have died and who will die for your right to vote, but those are things you already know, aren't they? It isn't that you don't understand the importance of voting, it's that you feel as though your vote is unimportant. Please know that I empathize with your cynicism. We have a historic amount of student loan debt, we're staying at home with our parents much later than our parents stayed at home with theirs, we're being told that our hard-earned, bought with cold-hard-cash college degrees are now the equivalent of high school diplomas, and that the only debate most people want the "millennial opinion" on is the color of the Starbucks cups this year. Worst of all? The baby boomers think our biggest problem is the fact that our phone batteries can't keep up with all of our Facebook-ing and Twitter-ing. (Oh, how I wish that were true.) But who wouldn't be cynical about that?
Our vote has been treated like many of our papers this semester: put off until it really counts, then discarded when it's over and we've gotten the grade.
I hear you, really, I do. But I want to remind you of one thing: your vote, and your voice does matter.
We see it everyday. We have enough power to make a video of a cat go viral, and you think we can't elect the candidate we feel most fit to run our country? We can influence what businesses flourish, all based on our public, social-media-posted opinions. We sign petitions, we defend the defenseless, we support each other and our country in times of distress, and we still find time to create the dankest of memes.
We are millennials, and we are powerful. This Tuesday, get out and vote, if you haven't already. Because if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for everything. But we stand for our right to be heard, for our right for our vote to matter, for our right to hold our government accountable. We stand, as examples of the change we want to see in our world.
We stand for us.
