When I was named editor-in-chief of Southpaw, my first thought was, “But I’m not political!”
I didn’t care about state representatives or new policies or the state of the union address; I didn’t read the newspaper every day; I didn’t know the difference between a senator and a congressperson.
Okay, wait. I’m not telling the whole truth here. I better just come out with my big secret about how apolitical I really am.
Here goes.
I didn’t vote.
That’s right, I’m the editor-in-chief of “Washington University’s liberal voice” and I didn’t vote in my first United States presidential election.
But don’t get too shocked yet, because that’s only part one.
Part two: I’m still not even registered to vote.
I realize this is indefensible. Voting is one of the most important things one can do as an American. If black people or poor people came out in larger numbers on election day, politicians would spend more time and money on them to try to win their votes. I can’t think of a more effective way than voting to reverse the economic and racial inequalities that have been built into this country from its very beginning.
On many occasions in the year-and-a-half since I didn’t vote, my guilt over my gross political and social negligence has brought me to tears. Apparently, though, I’ve never felt quite bad enough to try to remedy the situation and prevent future such slip-ups by actually registering to vote.
It’s a moot point that I should have voted and I should have registered, but I know why I didn’t and haven’t: stuff like that is boring. I can think of about 700 things on the Internet more interesting to do than going to vote.com and typing in my name and address. And there are plenty of things on November Tuesdays more stimulating than trekking in the cold to Wydown Middle School to wait in line and fill out a piece of paper.
Roughly 50 percent of Americans didn’t vote in the 2000 Presidential Election, so I’m just one of many; e pluribus unum. The voters, that self-righteous lot, like to get angry at us. They like to wonder what we were thinking and talk about how irresponsible we are. The voters are right: we non-voters weren’t thinking, and we bring the word irresponsible to new heights. But the voters don’t try to understand us, and that’s where they go wrong.
I thought voting was boring because I thought politics were. I thought politics were boring because they weren’t about me; I thought they belonged to poly-sci majors, senators, grown-ups, 9-to-5 office workers, professors, my parents.
It’s my fault that I didn’t vote, but while a lot of people told me that it was important to vote, no one showed me that politics are mine, too.
I should have voted because it hurt my feelings in high school when boys would make fun of me for not shaving my armpits. I should have voted because powerful, conservative strangers are trying to make decisions about my homosexual friends’ private business. I should have voted I because hate the Gap with a deep and burning passion. I should have voted because the most innovative, intelligent, talented musicians I know of are post officers and hair cutters by day.
Politics are mine; they are everybody’s. If half of the United States can’t motivate themselves to fill out a sheet of paper that gives them the power and the right to change their lives and the lives of people they love, their country has failed them. Politics matter only because they are about me living my life and you living yours. My non-voting brethren and I lost sight of this connection, if we ever saw it in the first place.
I’m sorry I didn’t vote and haven’t registered, but I’m fully capable of letting the next election pass through my fingers as well if America continues to fall short in its job as a democracy. It’s the media’s job to present politics to the people in clear and interesting ways. It’s politicians’ job to be brave and play fair by encouraging all people to vote. And it’s everybody’s job to remind ourselves and each other that politics are only important because we are.