Election Day, a time when our government tries to act like the people of this country are heard. I’m not saying you shouldn’t vote; please don’t let that be the takeaway here. Voting is an important part to democracy and I’m not saying we should scrap all of it. But when you go to the polls and look at your options many of you might have the same reaction as I did…what the f*ck!? You want to be a good citizen and vote for someone who will turn this country around and put it on a path that at least isn’t going to ruin most of humanity. Noble goal, especially when your candidate options seem exactly the opposite of country-saving.
Why, I ask, is it that every Republican platform revolves around taxes, permits, and more regulations and every Democrat’s platform revolves around “fixing” education and the environment but with no actual plan to fix anything? The Republican and Democrat terminology has been dividing our country slowly for decades and now it seems as though a huge rift has split us apart. When you hear the phrase, “I’d never vote for a Democrat/Republican,” that should terrify you. What if the opposite party candidate has the better platform? Are you still going to vote for your party? This train of thinking is dangerous because it divides us. We are all United States citizens, are we not? Human beings that have our own thoughts and beliefs. Yes, our politics need to change and yes, it seems like the government is no longer for the people in the slightest and yes, it feels like you’re screaming into the void and no one cares enough to listen. But the idea that individuals don’t have power in this country is a lie.
The people elect the officials so the officials better start listening. And yes, we do this through voting, and yes when you look at your ballet this November you might be as horrified as I am to have to choose between the lesser of evils, as they say, but that vote is still important. Maybe it’s time someone new goes into office, maybe it’s time someone “less qualified” takes office because just maybe that person who isn’t so entrenched in politics actually has a fresh way of looking at the problems our states and country have. This isn’t a time to be divided. Our country needs to keep plowing forward and to do that we need to be united, like our country’s name dictates.
If we want the respect we believe we deserve, we can’t let self-centered politicians who claim they know best because they’ve been in the game for so long continue to run our country. I argue that if you’ve been in the game for so long, what exactly have you contributed? Public schools are still a mess, the environment is in desperate need of attention, taxes seem to just keep rising, and there are far too many regulations. At the same time it doesn’t seem enough, like just throwing these words around means nothing. What are you going to do about it? This country doesn’t need to be filled with any more political promises, we need results. To do that we need people in office who can think outside the box, who can look at this country with fresh eyes because currently the political eyes of our government seem to just keep messing things up.
There is no simple solution. If there was, even the politicians would have found it. There are over 325 million of us in this country. Maybe if we actually work together and try to listen to one another, we can get something done. Because this idea of he-said she-said, this whole Democrat vs. Republican crap is just slowing down all the amazing things we could be doing as a country. So this November 6th, vote for who you think will be the better candidate to do what needs to be done. Maybe it’s not who you’d normally vote for, maybe it’s not even in the party you associate with, maybe your vote goes against the vote of your friends and family; to that I say, good, let it. This is supposedly the land of the free and the home of the brave, so maybe we should start acting like it.
~M