Staying Out of Politics is Selfishly Rooted in Privilege
Alexandra Gore | November 30, 2023
The United States prides itself on its freedom and democracy by giving its citizens the power to elect government officials. However, every citizen was not always allowed to vote, with women not gaining the right until 1920. African Americans were given voting rights through the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, but even then poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation and several other tactics were used to prevent them from voting.
Today, voting barriers still exist. Voters of the global majority (non-white people of African, Asian, Latin American and Arab descent) consistently face longer wait times than white voters on Election Day. The War on Drugs movement that former President Richard Nixon began in the 1970s led to the mass incarceration of Black and Hispanic Americans, which is still in effect today. Depending on the state, once a person is convicted of a felony, they could lose their right to vote forever.
In high school civics, my teacher took a poll of all of the students in the class who were eighteen years old at the time of the most recent election. A solid third of the students raised their hands. Then, he asked how many of them showed up on election day to cast their vote.
Not a single student raised their hand.
There are several reasons why a citizen may choose not to vote. According to Census Bureau data, 15% of registered voters reported that they did not vote in the 2016 presidential election because they did not believe their vote would make a difference.
The United States uses the Electoral College system to count votes. The number of electoral votes that a state has is determined by its population. If a candidate wins the State’s popular vote, most states will award all electors to that candidate, and they have won that state. However, in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes, yet Donald Trump won the presidency because he earned 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227.
If those 2.8 million votes seemingly did not matter, why do we place such heavy emphasis on the importance of voting?
There have been more than a dozen races decided by a single vote over the last twenty years. In 2017, Republican David Yancey was declared the winner by a single vote, which gave the Republicans control of the Virginia state House by a single seat.
If you choose not to vote because you hate America’s divisive two-party system, so do 27 percent of Americans. But unfortunately, not voting will not magically erase the system that we have had in place for almost 250 years, and it will only further stabilize it.
We all have political opinions, and politics is everywhere. No matter how strongly a person swears to “stay out” of it, politics impacts our everyday lives. The roads you drive on, the water you drink, the food you eat and the education you receive are rooted in politics.
Several of us live our day-to-day lives without needing to worry about the politics around us; this is a privilege. For some people, however, politics is not something they can brush off and ignore.
Politics govern the lives of citizens of the global majority. It determines whether members of the queer community can express themselves freely. How immigrants are treated is politics.
The United States has a big problem with empathy and solidarity, and this was especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and its mask mandates. Many people who refused to wear a face covering claimed that they felt like their rights were being infringed upon or that the government was manipulating them. Because of this, immunocompromised people in America were forced to stiffen their precautions and the U.S. faced over 1.5 million deaths, which is 460 million more deaths than its runner-up Brazil.
So, if you do not believe yourself to be affected by policies, why should you care?
Let me rephrase the question: If the system serves you, why should you care about others whose lives depend on policy?
Choosing to stay out of politics is selfish. When you vote, you are not just voting for yourself, but you are voting for your community. In a time when resources are unlimited, taking less than an hour to educate yourself on political candidates and using that not-so-random November Tuesday to check a couple of boxes is truly the least one can do.
If you are interested in registering to vote in Buncombe County, you can visit their voter information page. Remember to use your voice for good.
