Apathy and Irony

So I voted yesterday.  Like most people, last time I voted was in the 2008 Presidential election.  After leaving the polls two years ago I wanted to roll down my window and yell “I VOTED I VOTED I VOTED I VOTED!”

This time I felt like this:

 

By Wednesday night I still hadn’t decided whether I even wanted to vote.  I’ve been so fucking jaded with politics that I jumped into the Is It Even Worth It? boat alongside so many of my fellow Americans.

But I did vote.  And I’ll admit to something a lot of people are shamed into keeping to themselves…my vote was pretty uninformed.  I like to consider myself a smart person, but that’s not something that smart people shout from the rooftops.

Why was I uninformed?  The short answer is because political media sucks.  I have zero faith in any person or publication reporting on politics because of all of the bullshit hype and mudslinging and my-dick-is-bigger-and-better-for-the-economy-than-your-dick.  I don’t feel like I’m voting for real people.  Instead my vote goes to one of many faceless assholes with the only difference being financial backers wearing either red shirts or blue shirts.

Which isn’t realistic.  The media hyperbolizes everything so in return my own mind distorts the proportions of my opinions.  I feel a sense of desperation with politics.  Is it because our political situation really is that dire?  Or is it because the media’s fear tactics are successful?  I don’t know.  Likely a combination of both.  But this sense of apathy certainly isn’t going to help change things.

I ended up voting because of an article a friend posted on facebook.  To be honest I think that some of the reasons are bullshit (For example, putting women in office simply because they’re women.  Hello Sarah Palin.).  But reading it took me back to when I was writing a college paper on an Elizabeth Cady Stanton suffrage speech.  I fell so in love with the passion and eloquence of the suffragists that I was sobbing on the top floor of the campus library like a premenstrual preteen.  They fought their bloomered asses off for me to have this right and I’m thinking about throwing it away?  Shame on me.

Even though I didn’t do heavy research on my candidates, I support President Obama’s reform.  I think that the way politics is done needs to change and that he’s working to do that.  I believe in the social changes he considers necessary like universal healthcare and the elimination of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Although I’m disappointed by the divergence between the audacious campaign of Hope that he ran on and the implementations that have succeeded, I think that he’s a good president that deserves my support in his endeavors.

Is everything he doing correct?  Probably not, but the Leviathon that we call government doesn’t lend itself to the black and white solutions we all desire.  And because I agree with him on a broad level I’ll do my part to elect officials that will make it easier for him to enact those changes.  That doesn’t mean that I think he should be able to pass whatever he wants and have a Congress full of rubber stamps (Ooh, a political cliché, how fun!).  It means that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Republican wave was coming and I had to throw my tiny insignificant opposing opinion out there.

It seems everyone has an opinion about everyone else’s reasons for voting.  A post on facebook reminded me that our government is supposed to represent the people…even the jaded, stupid, uninformed ones.  And that includes those that choose not to vote.