Opinion: Political Ignorance is Your Toxic Trait
Anytime that politics come up, there’s always a chorus of voices bragging about how they don’t follow or care for political news, and in election years, it’s a thousand times worse. The fact of the matter is that it’s nothing to brag about. It’s like saying “I’m not like other girls” to make yourself feel special. All you’re effectively doing is alienating yourself from the world around you.
Democracy is defined as a government system in which a state’s power rests in its people. So, are we really a democracy if we as a people choose to forfeit our power? At the very least, we can’t claim that our government reflects the will of the American people when what it actually represents is the will of the Americans who took the time to vote. In the 2020 presidential election, that number was the highest it’s ever been, but it was still only two-thirds of the United States’s eligible voting population, according to the Pew Research Center. Unlike previous years, the majority of voters cast a ballot, but a majority is not collective enough, especially in a system where having the majority vote does not necessarily win the election.
From the initial signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the American Revolution that followed to the ratification of Amendments Fifteen and Nineteen to the Constitution, people have fought for our right as American citizens to vote. It’s an easy thing to forget when you’ve never known any different, but everyone—especially those who aren’t white men born into money—needs to understand that they’re lucky to be in a place where such strides toward individual independence have been made.
It’s okay not to be nose-deep in politics—if everyone were too religiously invested, there’d be no mediators to help get things done—but you can’t act like not doing your research and not voting is quirky when all it actually is is toxic. It doesn’t matter what your affiliation is. You’re allowed to be an Independent, a Democrat, a Republican, a Green, a Libertarian, or anything else. What matters is that if you are eligible to vote, you take the time to learn who and what you’d be voting for, and you take the time to follow through and fill out and submit a ballot. What matters is that you care enough to do your part to contribute to society. Because the results of the election do affect you. They affect all of us.
Too many people spend more of their time sitting back and talking about “the idiots in Washington” and all of their misgivings than they do trying to make any kind of constructive difference. Rather than voting for different people or making an effort to appeal to the politicians who currently hold various seats in our government, they keep doing nothing as they always have and wonder why nothing changes. Corrupt politicians do exist, they’re everywhere, but the reason they get to be where they are is because we let them. We should be spending our time backing political candidates who we feel accurately represent our interests and encouraging others to get out and vote, not whining. If you see something wrong, do something to help fix it. Doing anything else is, to put it nicely, lazy.
The right to vote never has been and never will be a guarantee, no matter how much it may feel like a given, so don’t take it for granted. It could be taken away at any time, and the weaker our democracy is, the easier it will be for that to happen. We can strengthen it by making our voices heard because that’s the only way the true will of the American people can ever be reflected in our government. It’s the only way true democracy works. Consciously choosing not to contribute doesn’t make you cool; it makes you selfish.
Source Referenced: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/
