It’s finally my favorite time of year. No, not the holidays: post-election season. Everything is winding down, people are taking the signs out of their yards and I’m no longer forced to watch mud-slinging ads before every YouTube video (why can’t you just let me watch Tears for Fears videos in peace, Internet?).
I see the value in political awareness and I’m not belittling the valiant (but ultimately pointless) effort in creating an educated populace of informed citizens. But the onslaught of attack ads and politically charged Facebook posts is like a sensory overload.
My deep, dark secret is that I have yet to vote. I think my dad is still under the impression that I’m registered and I mailed in my absentee ballot, so please don’t tell or he’ll resurrect Joe McCarthy from the dead and sic him on me.
Don’t get me wrong, I went through my political phase: for Halloween in 2004 I dressed up as a protestor. There is only one unmistakable message a costume like that could have sent to my parents: buckle up.
Luckily for them and for my social well-being, that was the crescendo of my “polarizing political statement” phase. If your opinion is so strong that it is alienating, you need to work on your presentation.
I’m often met with the statement: “If you don’t vote, then you can’t complain,” but I never understood how this was supposed to motivate me to vote.
“I’m going to vote so I can have free license to whine until the next election if this one doesn’t go my way.” That’s not at all how the system should work, and I pray that the people who do vote are making informed decisions, not cashing in their right to gripe.
I’m also 90 percent sure that half the people who chose to display the “I voted” badge on their Facebook did not actually vote. At least, I hope that’s the case because too many people from my high school said they voted and they simply do not need to be.
If you exercised your right not to vote this election, that’s fine. Don’t let anyone make you feel stupid or that you somehow let your country down by not participating. A professor at my old school would say, “The founding fathers died so you could vote.” Maybe I missed the point, but I’m pretty sure they died so I could choose. I can certainly tell you they did not die so you could be condescending towards my decision.
