The Cognitive Dissonance of Federal Elections
Okay,
so we’re a little more than a year out from the next US federal election. That means everyone’s news feeds are about to be dominated by armchair politicos, activists who seem to emerge, cicada-like, every four annum, and more post-truth, fear-mongering goodness than you can shake a post-modern “image of a stick” at.
Allow me to be among the first to inject my two cents, and pre-empt everyone who is going to weigh in on the 'Get Out The Vote'/'Your Vote Doesn't Matter' argument spectrum, I feel y'all are missing the chance at a bigger conversation here:
136,627,459 votes for president were cast in 2016.
So your vote does matter- as 1/136.627,459 of the decision. That is numerically insignificant. It makes each of our voices equate to less than a rounding error in choosing the so-called Leader of the Free World, and that's if we had a direct democracy, before the abstractions of the electoral college, gerrymandering, and the suppression of ideas of a two-party state. That is where a lot of the cynics get their vitriol I feel, that even before considering all of the media influence and lack of transparency, even if the system worked perfectly, we are each marginalized by design.
I agree with this. And I agree with those who will reject that cynicism and insist that large quantities of individual actions can create bigger change than any individual is capable of acting alone. That is so very true! There is a god inside of you, whether you created it, or it created you, and its just waiting to work together with other people to do things you are afraid are not possible. That includes being a part of shaping how the world we live in is run, which includes voting. Plus it's really not that hard. You fill out a card and it takes like an hour tops, more like 10 seconds in Boone. Every four years. No hard labor. It doesn't cost anything, and it's not even public- you literally have nothing to lose and don't have to tell anyone what you did ever. It's really not big of a deal. It's just a thing you should do and not really worry that much about.
Because the actual vote is just a symbol. The symbolic act of going to vote is empirically meaningless, but the intention behind it, of participating in shaping the world around you, is extremely powerful. Y'all are just saying different parts of the same sentence and I think you'd agree if you just said the whole thing together. So vote, but don't get all frantic about it. We have to be neighbors with each other after next November one way or another. Save your energy for all the time in between and stop getting distracted with federal tv politics. Don't stop being an activist after the election, work with people you know to build something your community needs, regardless of what they were shouting about on the internet a few months ago. Definitely don't waste your vote, but more importantly, don't waste your life.
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