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The 2008 Election and Why I Will Not Be Voting
In light of this year’s race for the presidency, I have
decided that I will take the advice of this election
cycle’s slogan “You Decide,” and make the choice--not
to choose. I know…how unpatriotic of me, how un-democratic of me.
There are those who value voting as
highly as a marital union or a religious experience, and will no doubt despise my
diatribe, but for those individuals
who are courageous and open-minded enough to read on, I promise there is a method
to my madness.
One of the problems
I have with the current political system in America, is that there is no real choice. All
the possible candidates,
all the presidential hopefuls that are qualified to “run” this country are eventually funneled
into one of
two favored possibilities, one representing the “right wing” ideology, and the other from the “left.”
Somehow, the right has become synonymous with conservatism, and the left synonymous with liberalism. This left-right
paradigm has historically dominated American politics over the past two centuries, leaving little or no room for
“centrist,”
or “moderate” affiliated candidates to have a substantive effect on the presidential electoral outcome.
This process galvanizes voters by forcing them to choose the next president based mainly on platform issues such as: gay
rights, gun control, abortion, death penalty, etc, or even more cosmetic attributes. While these issues are important
and highly volatile in the public debate, they aren’t necessarily the best barometer for choosing a president.
While
the president does have a certain amount of power and authority, those who place the bulk of the future
course of this
country on the shoulders of the next president are sadly misled. Inasmuch as presidential voting in
America has
become mostly symbolic, the actual position of “President of the United States of America,” represents more of
a ceremonial figurehead. The actual planning, deciding, and execution of national policy is determined by a larger
scope
of factors including internal bureaucracy, international relations, corporate ties, residual effects from past
administrations,
and many other factors that influence and mold the so-called democratic process of the American political
machine.
The
road to the 2008 presidential nomination has been one of the most contentious, contested, costly, and convoluted
in history.
It has also been one of the most widely publicized, with all of the contestants getting an early start, and
getting plenty
of air time and hype. All televised debates aside, the leading contenders have been whittled down to three
media
favorites, with the public eye primarily focusing on the petty bickering between the two democratic front runners
Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama. Much emphasis has been put on this squabbling by the mainstream media, which has
historically
acted as the de facto declarer of all that is newsworthy, if not by technological ubiquity, by the sheer
pervasiveness
of its influence over our culture.
Of all the potential candidates for president, the ones who are afforded the
most influence are the ones with the
most money. It costs money to run political advertisements, to make nationwide
campaign tours, to hire consultants and
advisors, to equip a competent staff, etc. The more money you have, the
more primetime slots you can buy. What we are
left with is essentially two analogous factions vying for the top
executive position of a heavily biased system.
In his book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global
Dominance, notable scholar and political analyst Noam Chomsky
states:
“Through tacit agreement, the two
major parties approach the contest for the presidency
as political kabuki in which the players know their roles and everyone
sticks to the script,
striking poses that cannot be taken seriously. If the public escapes its marginalization
and passivity, we face a crisis of democracy that must be overcome…”
The
media inevitably gives its endorsement to representatives from the bi-partisan “wings” by allotting them the
most
airtime, thrusting their causes into the limelight, and instigating a limited debate forum. The substance of the
message
becomes lost in the flash of gratifying allure that exists within the primarily entertainment driven political
scene.
This process only reinforces the illusion that only their causes are important and newsworthy. It is the media
that
reports. It is the media that decides. It is the media in which most people pledge their unwavering faith.
There
has been a move in recent years, to make voting more appealing and even trendy, sometimes exaggerating the
importance
of presidential voting to the point of social bigotry. I call this phenomenon voter chic. The voter chic
crowd
believes in voting for the sake of voting, and anyone who doesn’t follow their adhesion to the illusion of “choice,“
in American politics is exempt from true citizenship. These are the people that chastise non-voters with the usual
lockstep cliché of: “Well, if you don’t vote, then you don’t have a right to complain.”
This statement is a true sign of
non-democracy, and of complete ignorance of the voting process. When the voter
chic camp is confronted with the fact that,
in the end, voters are pigeon-holed into the left-right paradigm, and that
inevitably only one of two candidates will
emerge victorious, another common cliché is: “Well, that’s just
the way it is.” According to his essay “End of the
Mandate,” Gregory Bresiger states:
“They
say that people who don’t vote can’t complain about the outcome. But they also say
that if your candidate
didn’t win, you can’t complain because that’s being a sore loser.
You also can’t complain
if the guy you voted for does something you don’t like. Hey, you
voted for him, didn’t you? You
can’t win. The game is rigged.”
The truly important decision of electing a president
has been reduced to choosing the lesser of two evils, rather
than voting according to one’s conscience. During
past elections, I found myself voting for or against candidates based
on this flawed system of false choice. I walked
away feeling like no matter which direction I voted, I was ultimately
playing into the hands of political elites that
had already charted the course of my vote based on giving me the illusion
of choice.
To the ignorant, “not
voting” is an irresponsible act that is tantamount to the ruination of this country. There
are however, dissenting
voices that see through the subterfuge of false choice politics in America. In the book Everything
You Know is Wrong,
editor Russ Kick summarizes the book Dissenting Electorate by stating:
“People who choose not to vote are often
derided as lazy, apathetic, and apolitical. While
there may be a few folks who don‘t cast a ballot out of
sheer sloth, lots of people have
convincing reasons…Perhaps most often, politics and government are seen as worthless,
even
harmful, systems that exist solely to exercise power over people. By voting, you play the
game, you support
the very system that imprisons you. By not voting, you commit a revolutionary
act by refusing to be a part of the
machine. You are withdrawing your consent to be governed
by an inherently corrupt system.”
For those
that would argue that voting is a right, or privilege of living in America, I would argue that my right
to protest, or
to conscientiously “not vote” is an equally afforded right which is just as valid in this age of political
kool-aid
drinking. Robert LeFevre states in his essay, “Abstain from Beans:”
“When we express a preference
politically, we do so precisely because we intend to bind others
to our will…Political voting is nothing more than
the assumption that might makes right. There
is a presumption that any decision wanted by the majority of those
expressing a preference
must be desirable, and the inference even goes so far as to presume that anyone who differs
from
the majority view is wrong or possibly immoral.”
What it comes down to for me is, either my vote
counts, or it doesn’t. If it does, then my voice should be heard
in a truly democratic system. Spectrums
of real issues would be debated in a public forum not censored or marginalized by
the corporately controlled media or
its clients. If my vote doesn’t truly count, then my time and energy will be wasted
in the process.
The illusion of choice is not real choice. Instead of binding myself to a broken system of false choices,
I would
rather extend my energy to help create the type of world I would like to live in.
Blogger’s note:
At the
time of the writing of this blog, I happened to
enter into a conversation about the subject of voting with an
individual
sitting at my table. She rudely proclaimed that I
was “stupid” for choosing not to vote and basically
argued that
I was apathetic and in the majority view of thinking. She then
went on to talk about how she didn’t
vote in the past two
election cycles, including state and local issues, which
incidentally have far more of an apparent
impact than presidential
elections. Her reasons for not voting were that she had too far
to travel to her voting
precinct, and that she frankly didn’t care
about some of the local issues on the ballot, but she plans on
voting
this year. “It may not matter much, but at least I can say
that I voted,” she said.
Such
empty and uneducated rhetoric only serves to
illustrate my point, and strengthens my resolve. This individual,
although
arrogant and opinionated, is sadly misguided in her attempt
at political awareness. She is happy to walk away from
the voting
booths with the nifty little “I Voted” sticker displayed, so she
can brag to the world that
she was part of the American political
system, albeit an admittedly manipulated one. This idea of
fashionable
voting or voting for bragging rights is the epitome of
“voter chic.” Her ignorance is only compounded
by her hypocritical
voting- or rather non-voting record.
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