Over the last year or so I've heard an abundance of people in my age range claim they aren't going to vote. The reasons are varied ("I don't like either candidate" and "politics isn't my thing" being the most common), but what these sentiments seem to boil down to is an ingrained sense of apathy directed toward our current establishment. Keep in mind I'm not reiterating the annoying cliché that millennials are the laziest generation. I think that wherever you reside on the spectrum of being a conservative/liberal voter, it's pretty easy to see how effective the Bernie Sanders campaign was in disproving this tired cliche' by mobilizing young adults towards a common political goal.
I am trying to point out that young adults of this time (the new millennium) and place (America) have been born into a society that is easy to be cynical and apathetic in response to. It's usually my go to reaction to a news article or commercial especially. Cynicism feels good. There's a certain perverse pleasure derived from being disgusted at something because it takes the blame off of you and channels it towards an exterior party. And I'm sure you know as well as I do that we have an abundance of problems to be justifiably cynical towards. The commercialization of pretty much everything, which fosters that sickening feeling that every politician is just a salesmen as opposed to a real person being the root of this feeling for me.
What I mean by that last sentence is that it's way too easy to hear "Make America Great Again" or "Stronger Together" and just equate those words to the "lowest prices guaranteed" bit at the end of a commercial. These slogans all basically blur together when you don't get the impression that either candidate is coming from a place more genuine than a McDonald's ad. Whether Trump or Hillary can really provide the proverbial "lowest prices" at this point is kind of moot given the feeling that they both seem to come from a place of purely self interest.
On to the point of all this. It's that sense of discouragement created by the modern political/cultural climate that makes me feel apathetic about voting. I just can't picture myself standing in a voting booth, facing a ballot and feeling good about any of it, which makes me wonder if I should even vote at all. That's what is truly frightening to me about this election. That we've come to a point where so many people (myself included) feel resistance towards exercising one of our absolute fundamental rights as members of the nation we are a part of. Even if you have to pick between the "lesser of two evils," as the saying goes, I still think everyone needs to vote if only to say you exist as a citizen with an opinion.
When you say your vote doesn't matter, you're essentially saying your voice doesn't matter. Yeah, I get that the electoral college ultimately has more of an influence than the popular vote, but that's no reason not to show up to the conversation. If you're in a huge crowd of people who are all decrying their opinion on a certain topic then you're going to feel a need to contribute as well, to attempt to prove to the cacophony that you exist. That's essentially what this election feels like to me. Just a bunch of people all in a room talking over one another.
If you're annoyed and angry that the two party system has only supplied their least desirable candidates then not voting is only going to ensure it happens again. By staying home on voting day as a protest you're essentially still voting by allowing some fanatic's vote to count twice as much as yours. That one person on your newsfeed who constantly posts those antagonistic left wing/right wing propaganda articles you hate so much is going to be at the polls come hell or high water. If you stay home as "protest" you lose any credible way to rebuke both that person and the establishment you're protesting because you didn't act to change anything.
Anyways, there's my rant. How do you feel about voting?
