Daily writing prompt
Do you vote in political elections?
There was a dark moment where, frustrated about choices on offer, I admit to having flirted with the idea of not voting, calculating whether protest would make more of a difference. I gave in because the act of voting in itself is sacred to me. I consider all that has happened to make way for more and more people to be able to vote, not just in the U.S. where I am, but around the world, and appreciate that struggle.
Ultimately, I can only control my side of things. I can only make my gesture, occasionally donate to the kinds of candidates I'd actually like to vote for, and hope that my acts of civil duty matter at all to keeping at least a few maniacs out of power.
Modern politics seems like a distorted mirror fun-house to me, and rationales behind what I hear from people justifying incomprehensible risks with our democracy, I often find truly bizarre. So I rarely get tangled up in debates, but I try to fathom sincere complexities. Trauma is one of those complexities actually, because people who have been traumatized may be quite susceptible to deceptions and cons of various sorts. I don't feel my judgment is trustworthy when distanced from compassion.
Last election I took part in writing letters to voters through Vote Forward, which I was reminded of a few months ago from Mary here on WordPress! I've signed up to do so again.
After all, what pulled me away from that dark moment was considering that one big reason our politics are in the state that they're in, is that many do not vote, or are hindered from voting. If I imagine a world in which more and most citizens are voting, including voting to protect voting, I imagine a world where ugly culture wars are less prominent and policies are actually debated in an engaged informed way by people at all levels. I imagine we would have even more choices in such a world. Maybe even tests of ranked-choice voting?
So yes, I vote every chance I get.
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