Decision 2024: As We Head Into A Tumultuous Election, I Have A Simple Question For The Loudest Voices

 

Over the years I have taken a lot of abuse on this site for being too harsh on the left. I’ve been accused of being a conservative, a MAGA extremist , a bigot and worse names simply because I argue for just ridiculous concepts such as empathy, free speech and objectivity. But there’s a bigger reason I hold many on the left in utter contempt. It’s because whenever I’m asked to defend myself for my actions, I put forth what I do and I always end these comments with a question that is one of the simplest to ask. It has three words that justify my contempt for all of these so called intellectuals who love to write how screwed up the world is and always has been. It’s one that I have never once received an answer for from any of them.

Do you vote?

They love to argue how the Republicans have destroyed the world and want to send the world into a fascist state where a minority has all the power and they do not. They love to argue that their rights are being taken away by a group of old white men who hate the past and have no regard for the future. They say the system is fully and utterly broken and they can do nothing to fix it.

And I ask: do you vote?

They argue that neither party has our best interest at heart. They argue the government is so badly broken that we have no real rights or say in the process. They argue that America and every single elected official serving today and pretty much since the founding of the Republic has only designed to keep the minority down, keep the wealthy and power and do everything possible to suppress every single person who wasn’t then. They call them all racists and misogynist and homophobes because they didn’t have the values of the last twenty years. They call every part of their society inferior because it didn’t have those values and see no need at all to follow any part of it, believing because of that it is completely poisoned their participation or acknowledgment of it would be a sign of approval. Even living here is a sign of weakness.

And I ask them: do they vote?

They hold their greatest contempt for anyone who has taken part in public life. Any elected official is suspect; even those they might have campaigned for in the past. Idealism matters more than governing; they will turn on their own for breaking campaign promising and call them failures if they don’t achieve the impossible within hours of being sworn in.

And I ask them: do you vote?

They hold the far right in contempt for taking away rights they claim they hold dear. But when it comes time to ask if they exercise the one right that they have to do anything to stop this, they are silent on the question.

And I ask them: do you vote?

I should mention when it comes to the loudest voices on this site, I know the answer already. Some of the loudest voices I encountered on medium – the biggest sellers of what they proudly call ‘doom-porn’ -  made it very clear that they consider both parties equally horrible and made it very clear that they only choose to vote for candidates they agree with. Their user names are among the most popular on this site but I have no desire to give them any more oxygen. All I will say is that they are both female. And that makes my contempt for them all the greater.

When I was struggling to find work in the years following college, the first place I found a position to volunteer at was the Manhattan chapter of the League of Women Voters. You know, the organization that suffragettes like Carrie Chapman Catt founded after the passage of the 21^st Amendment. The organization that for a century has been the wellspring of every women’s voting organization and has long expanded since then. The organization that has sponsored so many of the televised Presidential debates since they became part of our electoral process since 1976. There was a poster that had to date back to 19^th century America explaining the kinds of things a man could be – the kindest thing I remember was ‘drunkard’ – and still have the vote while a woman could be a banker and not have the vote.

Now if you want to view it a certain way, you could say that the fact that a century after their ancestors earned this sacred rite, the fact that so many of today’s women view it with the same indifference as their male counterparts is evidence of true equality. I wonder what was Susan B. Anthony say because I know what she said not long before she died in 1906: “More than 60 years of hard struggle for a little liberty, & then to die without it seems so cruel.”

I’ve been reading recently Remember the Ladies by Angela Dodson Celebrating Those Who Thought For Freedom at the Ballot Box. I might take might right to vote for granted in a way many of those don’t, you know, being a white cis male and according to everyone who knows having all the rights and privileges that the one percent do but I’ve never felt that way. I’ll get to that in a minute because I’m not going to make this about me. (Yet.)

I have always been in awe of those who have spent their lives struggling for rights that most of us take for granted. And since we live in a democracy the most sacred is the right to vote. The Founding Fathers didn’t think us lowly mortals should have it initially, I acknowledge that and this book does too. It also makes it very clear of Abagail Adams’ famous words to her husband and how John, who followed her advice in so much, ridiculed it. I learned about the struggles of names that are familiar to be like Anthony and Stanton and Lucrecia Mott, and those that weren’t such as the Grimke sisters.

I know that women were among the greatest advocates for abolition even more than their male counterparts, that some of them believed in freedom for the black man more than their own liberties. Lucretia Mott actually broke from many of her fellow suffragettes when she advocated for the Fourteenth Amendment ahead of the cause of women’s suffrage.

And I know all too well that the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment was quickly destroyed by the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. I also know very well that many prominent African-Americans, including Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy spend an endless amount of time fighting to gain suffrage for African-Americans.

I know that suffrage took root in the west first, you know, in all of those backwards red states that the left loves to mock, such as Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and Nevada. I imagine some will argue that the men in charge only allowed them to be counted and vote so that they could have more power when their states in the Union. I have little doubt there are some who firmly wish they never had given their attitude towards them.

I know the battles that were fought. I know the abuse that these women took. I knew that most were thrown in prison, such as Anthony for daring to vote in the 1872 Presidential election. I know women have been trying to run for President even before they had the ballot: Victoria Woodhull and Belva Lockwood are names I know very well, and if you don’t, I have no intention of enlightening you here. Do your own work. I know that Jeanette Rankin was the first woman to be elected to Congress in Montana. Two years after she won having helped her state win suffrage, she cast a vote against entry into World War I. She served one term. In 1940 she was reelected and was the only elected official to vote against entry into World War II. She chose not to run again because she knew her stand had ensured she had no chance of ever being elected again. That was a stand that mattered, not like anything the Squad has ever done or ever will.

Everyone’s entitled to have an opinion of the country they live in, no matter how negative or uninformed. You’re allowed to complain as much as you want about how much the country has failed you; that’s your right in a free society and America is one, no matter how much the voices who complain the loudest say it isn’t. But actions have always spoken louder than words. And I’ve always found it telling that people who have expounded what have to be millions of words on how utterly screwed up America and how doomed we all are, whenever I ask them those simple three words, they go silent.

Now I’d like to address many of those readers. As you may know I live in New York. You leftists have made it very clear this is one of  the ‘good states’ because ‘everybody lives here’ and therefore it should have far more rights than the ‘bad states’ where nobody lives. I’m sure the fact that it’s so deep blue that most of you can’t remember the last time it voted Republican in a Presidential election is just a coincidence.

The thing is when you live in a state this Democratic, almost every citizen knows going in how the lion’s share of the elections at a national and state level will go. (Borough and city are another matter but obviously you leftists don’t care about that part of it.) Ever since I gained the legal right to vote in 1998, I knew that my vote wasn’t going to have the same impact it would in some states.

But every election day I still vote. I have done so in the morning and in the evening. I have done so in primary campaigns and general elections as well. I have voted for Congressman, senators and mayors. I’ve voted for judges and city council. I’ve voted for ballot issues and judges.

I should also mention I’ve also voted for Democrats and Republicans in many local and state elections. I’ve voted for the occasional third party candidate, though I won’t tell you when because it’s none of your business. But I always take my duty seriously. This past February, when the special election to fill the seat by the recently expelled George Santos took place (yes, he was my Congressman; I’ve had to bear that cross for a year) I actually made my way through a snowstorm to vote. That’s how seriously I take my civic duty.

So I’d like to ask all of the loudest voices and complainers. I’d also like to give a shout out to the people who have driven me the craziest the last eight years: the indifferent. I suspect, though I can’t prove, that so many of the loudest shouters ever since 2016 didn’t bother to vote during that season. I know that from the way so many of you still, even now, have an issue with Hilary Clinton. I get why you did; I share your same feelings and have held them for longer. What I don’t understand is those of you who took a good look at Trump and Hilary Clinton and then said to yourself, what difference does it make if I vote? Not vote for Stein or Johnson, just stayed home completely.

I imagine not only are there quite a few of you who did just that, but who spent all the time since then absolutely convinced that you bore no responsibility for what happened. I imagine many of you spent the next three years shouting the loudest about what was going on in the country, but the closer it got to Election Day, many of you were still reluctant to vote. Not by mail, vote.

That’s hard to imagine, I admit – the 2020 election had 66 percent of Americans vote, the highest since 1900, which isn’t comparable. Nearly half of all Americans turned out for the 2018 election, the highest for a midterm since 1914. Even the 2022 election 46 percent turnout was the highest in half a century.

So if you are both on the left and believe in democracy, then this would be your strongest argument that democracy works if you participate. The problem is many of you clearly still are reluctant to participate. A recent poll of 18-21 year olds said that only 53 % thought that a democracy was the best form of government.

If ever there was a poll that demanded a follow-up question, it’s that one. What form of government do those 47 percent of young Americans believe is the best form of government? Do they truly believe fascism or dictatorship is the way to go? Hard to fathom given how much they advocate on how other people want to take their rights away from them, but hardly impossible given what Gen Z is like overall. If the last several years have indicated anything, its that showy activism that makes a scene will always prevail over the slow work of actual progress which is what democracy is.

And now six months from election day, there are still a huge number of people who are indifferent to having to vote. This indifference has been becoming clear since it was obvious we would have Biden face Trump but I actually find that scarier than any potential second term of 45. I’ve made this point before, but I’m going to keep making it: if you believe Trump is going to do everything he says he is, then don’t you have a moral duty to do whatever you can to stop it from happening?

In that case, every single leftist on this blog should be spending the next six months writing praise for everything Biden does and that he deserves all the support we can give him. I don’t see it, though maybe I’m not looking in the right places. What I see are a lot of columns saying a lot but all of which with the same resigned attitude I see with so many so called ‘progressives’. “I guess we have to save democracy. You know, at least until something better comes along.” Many of them won’t even go that far.

I know what I’m going to do six months from now. I will get up bright and early and go to my nearest polling place. I will stand on line for as long as it takes, walk up to the polling place and fill in my ballot, not just for President but every elected official. I will hand it to the server and I will take my sticker. (I’ll throw it away the second I leave; I’m not that devoted.)

Then after several tense hours, I will watch the results on every news channel. It won’t be a fun night, honestly, every election night since 2016 has left me feeling raw and unsettled and constantly nauseous.

I’ll confess right now I’m slightly more optimistic about the end result than many of you on this site but considering that most of your default tones are doom-porn that’s saying very little. But my conscience will be clear because I did everything in my albeit limited ability to make a difference. I can live with that.

And when its over regardless of the result, all of you will have to deal with your own consciences. My opinion doesn’t count, though it will end up having to do with how you answer my original question?

Did you vote?