Let's be frank. There is a lot at stake in this year's election. We have passed the carbon tipping point, we may actually legalize marijuana, and there is a refugee crisis of biblical proportions just to name a few issues this year. With all of this going on it may seem a little overwhelming to choose a candidate, but the crises we face are the reason we must vote this year.
For many college students voting feels like an abstract concept. You know your parents have done it but you probably have no idea what the inside of a polling location even looks like. Well I'll tell you...boring. There will be a few people in a government building sitting at fold away tables. These people will look to see that you are in fact a registered voter and then you will walk over to very ugly booths with very ugly curtains in front of them. Once inside there will be a ballot. Hillary will be on one side and Donald the other. Republicans will be listed under Trump and Democrats Hillary (that's why voting for all dem or GOP is called voting down the ballot). You will select which candidates you want to vote for and liberty fairies will handle the rest.
I can tell you that if you are between the ages of 18-29 very rich people have spent millions of dollars to get your apathetic, millennial ass to cast a god damn vote. That is because we, as a generation, have a turnout rate of about 30%. All the things we complain about our government not having or not doing would have been done decades ago if that turnout rate were closer to 50%. However, there have been some encouraging trends, starting with Obama and then Bernie Sanders, that have convinced liberal donors that this is the year the youth vote finally makes its presence felt.
We no longer have the luxury of loitering outside of our country's democracy. Miami is flooding on sunny days yet state officials are banned from using the phrase "climate change". Our schools and infrastructure are falling behind but Republicans want us to keep shoveling money into an absolutely absurd defense budget. Pennsylvania's state government has been completely bought by natural gas and our water supply will be undrinkable if we do not elect leaders who say no to fracking. 2016 is the year we get involved. We need to vote in this election or face the consequences of our inaction in every election to come. There is a man running for president who thinks climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese, judges who are Mexican can't be fair, Brexit was a good thing, we need to force our military to torture and/or kill terrorists' families, stop and frisk was a great idea, and that since he is celebrity he can walk up to women and grab a handful of crotch. We are only in this situation because people like us have been lazy. This Tuesday, get out and vote. We need to send a message that the youth of this country cares. It's time for us to make the changes no other generation could do before.
