You've already seen it.
Everywhere.
Facebook seems particularly hung up on it. Every celebrity on Twitter is tweeting about it. I imagine it's a big deal on Instagram and SnapChat, though I can't be assed to figure those out.
The talking heads on TV want you to do it. Your family and friends are probably encouraging you to do it. (Or not do it, if they're dicks and they disagree with you.)
It's everywhere.
Vote.
Vote tomorrow.
Get out and vote tomorrow.
Have you voted already?
What's your voting plan? You do have a plan, right?
I've tweeted about it. I blogged about it on Friday. I'm blogging about it again today.
I'm probably wasting my time, if we're being frank. If you're actually reading this, you've probably already made up your mind about voting tomorrow. Hell, a lot of you have the option of early voting, so a lot of you may have already voted.
I don't. I just wanted to point that out. In Pennsylvania we don't have early voting, so the whole concept is especially foreign to me. We just get one day. Always have. Hopefully won't always in the future, but that's it. The first Tuesday in November is our only chance to make our voices heard in Pennsylvania. It makes it feel more consequential, perhaps.
It's our only chance.
So, like I said, if you're reading this, I'm probably not going to change your mind. On Friday I tried to reach out to the dedicated fence sitters. The ones who are deliberately not voting tomorrow. If you don't think there are people like that, you're mistaken. A lot of people consider the options, carefully weight them, and opt not to vote. The system and the people in it have ground them down. It's not, I believe, a lack of civil responsibility, but a lack of faith.
I was like that once. I didn't vote in 2000. I've regretted it ever since. It's not that my vote would have fixed the next eight years of misery I had to endure as a soldier in the Bush years. It's that I know if a few thousand people like me had thought differently, it would have a made a difference.
I've been wondering over the weekend about those words that I wrote on Friday. Why do I have such trouble expressing that you can be disappointed in the system, disappointed in the country even, but the only real voice you have for change is your vote? What is it that I find so hard to express about that?
And it came to me this weekend. If everyone voted, the abuses inherent in the system would melt away.
Don't like the two-party system? If everyone voted, third parties would have a far greater market share, and we would probably have a coalition government.
Don't like the abuses of the primary process? Imagine if everyone voted. There'd be no insurgent Trumps slipping through the cracks on the backs of a few firebrands. Primaries would mirror generals, and our candidates would all be much more moderate.
Don't like gerrymandering? Imagine if it didn't matter how you packed or cracked a district, because everyone in it was voting. Voters would be forced to choose their representatives rather than representatives choosing their voters.
Voter apathy is a tool. That's what bothers me about it. The disingenuous bastards with the reptile smiles want you to believe it's all pointless and fixed and the outcome is determined in advance. And the more you believe that, the more it is. The less you engage, the more they can push you out. You may think not voting is a well-considered choice, but it's really some asshole using you.
In the Australian system, voting is mandatory. If you don't vote you pay a fine. They also have the option to vote "no choice." I'd feel a million times better about Americans who walked into the voting booth and had the option to choose no one than the people who feel morally obligated to sit out every election.
In America, it's about the ground game. It's about the get-out-the-vote operation. It's about, when you think about, falsifying the wishes of the electorate by encouraging some of them to stay home and others to go to the polls. It's a game of three card monte and it's bullshit.
The voters are the oversight for the government. If everyone voted, the desires of the electorate would have to be represented by the government. As it is, politicians have learned that if they can mobilize their base, they can win elections, and that means fuck the 2/3 of the electorate who disagree with you.
Think about that. While not always the same and not always precise, this country is basically composed of about 1/3 liberals, 1/3 conservatives, and 1/3 moderates. Anytime you take a stance, the person to the left and the right of you will disagree. And yet we can be governed. We can and have been governed for going on 250 years. Slowly, inexorably, we have sought to build a more perfect union. It has become more perfect as more and more people have been enfranchised.
Over the years, in various ways, sometimes peaceful, sometimes bloody, each American minority - including women who, rather ironically, are a majority - have fought and earned the right to vote. And now that we have it, some people choose, whether deliberately or not, not to use it. And it's fucking up the system.
The more people vote the better our system gets. I doubt we'll ever have a mandatory, Australian-style system. I'd love that. The ideologues would disappear in a puff of shit-flavored wind. There'd be no question about where the American people stand on any issue. We would just fucking let you know once a year. That would shut up the pundits, too.
No, we'll probably never get that. Or at least no time soon. But we can replicate it by packing the polls to bursting with as many bodies as possibly. We can attempt to replicate mandatory voting by making everyone want to vote.
I wish the system wasn't so fucked-up, too. I talked about that at length last week. I don't like my vote being nullified, or stretched, or diluted. I don't like a whole lot of fucking things. But I believe if we start holding our representatives' feet to the fire by pulling those levers tomorrow, we can right this ship.
Won't you join me?
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