Happy Labor Day
There may still be, officially speaking, 21 days of summer, but Labor Day tends to mark a kind of psychological end to the season we associate most with vacations. It also marks a time when people tend to start paying more attention to a particular kind of work — the job of being an American citizen.
This is a transition, for many, between a somewhat lazy season of relative indifference to politics and a sudden renewed attention to it, willing or not. Labor Day also marks the time when candidates tend to start ramping up their campaigns for the November election, making politics pretty hard to avoid.
And a lot of politics there will be. For one thing, we’re in one of those years when many local government seats will be up for grabs — in counties, cities, towns and villages — making for scores of races in the Capital Region alone.
For another, in case you were tuned out this summer, the 2020 presidential race is well underway. Of the herd of 24 Democratic hopefuls that started campaigning early this year, 10 met the donor and polling qualifications for the next debate, on Sept. 12. And President Donald Trump has two would-be primary foes, a rarity for a sitting president.
It’s easy to be disillusioned by the political climate now, with Americans bitterly divided over the president and his policies, and many skeptical of the electoral process, especially after the interference by Russia in the 2016 election and reports around the country of voter suppression efforts, aimed particularly at minorities.
The skepticism runs deep: In an Npr/marist poll last year, 47 percent of respondents said they did not think all votes would actually be counted in the 2018 elections.
And yet Americans can’t sit this out, not this year’s local elections, not next year’s presidential and congressional races. If voter suppression frustrates you, fight it. If disinformation angers you, call it out, and seek out and support trustworthy sources of information. But don’t tune out. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that the saying “Elections have consequences” isn’t an empty phrase.
Nor is “Every vote counts” just a maxim we tell children. It was true in 2016, when several thousand votes in few swing states gave the loser of the popular vote the presidency, and it’s true on the local level, too. Consider the Democratic primary in Cohoes, where the first vote on June 25 yielded a tie in a Common Council race. A revote last week gave a sevenvote margin to one candidate. No doubt a few supporters of the loser are kicking themselves for thinking their vote wouldn’t matter.
Labor Day is a time to remember the working people who have built this country. We honor them best by preserving this democracy for their descendants.
So enjoy the beach, the barbecue, or however you choose to mark the holiday. And then let’s all get back to the hard and vital work of democracy.