Election 2016: The Beginning

You may have heard somewhere that there will be an election in the United States to choose a new president. You also may know that you can cast a vote for a candidate for president, in addition you can vote for all sorts of other offices and there may even be issues called initiatives and referendums where you can directly vote for or against the passage of certain laws. No really, I am totally serious.

Now, before you click away because it sounds like I'm insulting your intelligence, hear me out. I'm writing it this way because there are a lot of people out there who have not voted before, or do not understand the extremely daunting system and issues that come with it. You may be considering participating this time and not know where to start. It is nothing to worry about, though they may not admit it, everyone starts from zero when it comes to voting and civic participation. The problem it seems, is who is available when you do want to take that first step? Sure, we are taught in K-12 but it often is not reinforced or taught in a way that actually makes you want to get involved with politics, or even feel that the abstract lessons are applicable to real life. Maybe it wasn't cool enough or you were too focused on preparing for college or other post-high school plans. It is never too late to get involved, to learn, to vote, to reach out to others. Doing something is better than doing nothing, and if you are reading this then it is likely that you want to do something. I can try to help, and I want to help, but in the end it is up to you.

The first thing to try and keep in mind is that this is a very big country with over three hundred million people living in it. Each one has a past and a future, comes from different areas of life, and therefore has different ideas about how this country should be run. "Where you sit goes a long way towards where you stand" as one person I met put it. He meant that if you are in management you should always vote against any measure or candidate who proposes to raise standards of living for working people. In that case it was the battle over the right of government workers in the state of Wisconsin to organize in unions. Does that sound fair to you? Would you support someone who said they were going to make your life harder and your job less secure? Lots of people who stood to gain nothing from it did in fact vote for Scott Walker. And lots of them now are indeed less secure. They were not all in management, so why did they vote against their own interest? Well, this is why American politics is so hard to understand.

If you turn on the news or pick up a newspaper, or more likely see an article shared by a friend or coworker on social media you are likely to be catching a story in the middle of it. And just like catching a movie in the middle, it can be really confusing. Also unfortunate is that most political writers, whether bloggers like me up to the often grossly overpaid elites on TV or in print, are writing for an audience "in the know." There is very little space dedicated to helping people understand politics and government. Lots of words get thrown around that are unfamiliar to someone just starting out. It can be a huge turn off, and I totally understand. I was there too once and grew awfully frustrated on several occasions, but I can be really stubborn when I want to figure something out so I kept at it. By the time I went to college I could at least say I knew what questions I wanted to ask.

I am a lot more interested in building better citizens than simply persuading you to vote a certain way. You could just google up a government website telling you how to register to vote. Or visit your local Democratic or Republican Party office. The volunteers or workers there will probably be happy to help you vote, but voting is not all there is to good citizenship. We live in crazy times, dangerous and exciting. We have more than eight months to figure things out. Let's get started!