I didn’t vote then. I will now.
Twenty-five years ago I wrote an op-ed in the Hartford Courant, shortly after that year’s midterm election. The title? I didn’t vote, so what. The lead? “I didn’t vote this year. Wow. It takes nerve to admit that.” Actually, nerve had nothing to do with it. Naïve arrogance did. What surprised me after the piece broke was how many people approached me, heralding the gist of my thoughts: a midterm election, I didn’t vote, (neither did they), who cares.
Back then, like this year, state and local elections were on the block. When I wrote about my inaction, I simply did not see any policy differences between candidates that spurred me to choose one over the other. All the candidates seemed like decent people who had their constituents’ best interests at heart.
Selling souls for power, or simply a job, never entered my mind.
As a fence-sitter I have always believed that both parties, after spouting their diatribes and pointing out their opponents’ shortcomings, would do the right and purposeful thing. Our state and districts would rumble along just fine. If they did not, the good people of Connecticut would step forward and change our direction.
My vote wasn’t needed, so why bother? It wasn’t that I didn’t have the time; I did. I wasn’t out of town; I was home. I wasn’t so sick that I couldn’t drag my pitiful self to a voting booth. (We had booths back then).
I was healthy, lazy and complacent. I am not only ashamed that I did not vote, but embarrassed that I proudly wrote about it. That was then, this is now.
I shirked the very freedom men and women have died for since the first vote in 1788.
I won’t get into the history of a bunch of guys having almost a month to cast and count. That was a different time and a different story. And I won’t get into the shame I’ve felt during the ensuing years as rifts within our political system have turned not only nasty, but scary and unconscionable.
What I will get into is that if you don’t vote, you have no right to moan and groan or rant and rave against those who do not agree with you. Railing against right or rigged, free or fake should not come out of your mouth if you do not vote.
Over the last quarter-century everyday life from our main streets to every other main street around the world is very different. Our world, both local and all-encompassing, has become a very frightening place. These times require us not to be lazy or complacent or indifferent. They require us to step up and do that which is required of all Americans: Vote!
Right or wrong, we are considered the most informed citizenry in the world. Therefore, our leaders reflect us.
Your vote is a mirror to who we are. If you do not vote, America’s image is clouded, cracked and distorted. How we consider ourselves within our own borders and are perceived beyond our borders matters.
Either way individual lives are at risk, along with our very existence as a democracy.
Who to believe, who to back, who to vote for is like falling down a rabbit hole with endless paths of contemptible indignation.
Staying home this year is not an option. This year is pivotable. The very future of this nation depends on all of us to make a choice, stand by that choice and vote.
Twenty-five years ago, with nothing more than my next paycheck and what to have for dinner in mind, I figured that Connecticut would get along just fine without my vote. Like I said, I was a fence-sitter. I still don’t ascribe to any political party, yet I do drift left and sometimes right, but most of the time I float forward. Forward means I will vote.
If what we stand for goes down the drain in the next few years, I can at least say that I had my hand on the spigot to stop the flow.