Fulfilling Your Civic Responsibility
“Don’t boo, vote,” said Obama once to a crowd in 2016. I love those words, because it is really easy to get upset about politics and simply complain or shut down, but if we want things to change, we need to do something and vote.
I hear people say that they don’t care about politics, and they don’t want to get involved. I believe this thinking can come from a place of privilege or perhaps misunderstanding about what politics is.
If you don’t like your local speed limits or traffic laws, that’s politics. The way a school district runs things and spends money is politics. Health services and care, prison sentencing and laws, how taxes work and what the money is used for, it’s all politics. Politics comes from the President all the way down to the local level, and it’s all important.
Politics affects real people when veterans programs are cut, when social and community funding is affected, how immigration and legal asylum laws are carried out, how student loan policies work. There’s no real way to avoid politics, because it affects everything.
Whether you care about yourself, your family, or others, politics is important. And there’s something we can all do about it - vote. Speaking as a Zillennial, I know that voter turnout among young people is important, and it has been increasing. This is a heartening trend, because while it may not feel like your individual vote matters, it does, and it especially does if you get friends and classmates and other young people to commit to vote as well.
The Primary season is upon us. I’ve already filled out and sent in my absentee ballot request form, since I’m in college away from home. If you don’t know if you’re registered to vote, you can check and then get registered at vote.org, and you can also go to Rock the Vote for resources and information about voting, specifically meant for young people.
It may be too late for people in some states to register for their state’s Primary, but it’s never too late to prepare for the General Election, as well as to see what local leaders are up for election. Google your state’s voting laws, and look up when it’s Primary elections will be held here.
Don’t know much about the candidates? Learn about who’s running here, and then do more research on those who interest you. Something I believe in strongly is the importance of voting informed, and it’s not as hard as it sounds. You can Google a candidate and their policies to learn more. A good place to start is Politico, you can click through the candidates to find out their stances on certain policies. I started with Elizabeth Warren, because she’s who I’m leaning toward, but on the left hand side are the names of candidates and you can check them out. It’s good to look at multiple sources as well, so you can be better at filtering out bias and you can learn from different angles.
Many people’s ancestors fought wars to give us the right to vote. Protests and demonstrations, hard-won battles were fought, to give minorities and women the right to vote. Even today, there’s still voter suppression. We can’t let our voices be silenced. It’s a gift to be able to vote, to illustrate that citizens still have power in this country. Don’t waste your opportunity to have a say. And if nothing else, voting also means you could get a cool sticker.
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
