Midterm Election Burn-Out

I admit, I’m burnt out. I haven’t made an appearance here for quite a while, as midterm hype and campaign season idiocy dominate the news and distract us from the ordinary work of everyday effective civic engagement. People I usually admire greatly hop on board the “Get Out the Vote” train to What’s-The-F’ing-Point town and I don’t get to see them again or have an intelligent conversation about nuanced political philosophy unfettered by contrived, arbitrary party polarization until they’ve gotten the “lesser of two evils” rhetoric out of their system sometime in mid-November.

Fear is rampant and dominates all political discourse. Whether they acknowledge it consciously or not, everyone understands how little their vote matters unless they’re lucky enough to be on the winning side, and so the goal of courting the swing votes becomes all-consuming, tinged with all the desperation and hysteria of the insecure. In the ordinary world of everyday action, even small changes and personal choices to act mindfully and ethically can have cumulative effects, and you don’t have to wait for everyone else to get on board before you begin your own work to contribute meaningfully to the world. Not so with voting. The process of voting drastically downplays the importance of individual action even while it pays lip-service to individual participation. Everyone knows the system is broken, but we’re all so terrified of change that we wear it like a Halloween mask, evoking its specter every election day in the hopes that real change might safely pass us by.

I spent all day today working on an essay about why the refusal to vote is a legitimate expression of political dissent, and a responsible, effective choice about how to allocate one’s time, money, energy and resources in ways that more directly promote social justice and cultural change. Then I realized that I had spent more time drafting that essay than most voters today would spend standing in line to cast their ballot, and more time than readers would take to read the essay and consider its implications. Yet, almost definitely I would be the one accused of abdicating my civic duty, of behaving irresponsibly or selfishly, of being too lazy, naive or idealistic to participate effectively as a rational adult. The irony struck hard, I have to admit. I’m feeling a bit burnt out and cynical.

I’m not here to tell you not to vote. I’m here to tell you that I care, deeply, about the problems of this country. I’m here to tell you that my choice not to vote is a direct result of that care and concern. I’m here to tell you that I believe ritual actions have meaning, and to cast a vote for the “lesser of two evils” to represent my complex views in a system that has long since lost my confidence would be a ritual act that would only help to insure that system continues unchecked and unreformed. I’m a pragmatist. I have written almost three thousand words today explaining how my pacifism, my pragmatism and my conscience compel me not to vote in this election. Yet my own appeal is ringing in my mind: there are better things we could be doing with our time, better things we could be doing with our will and our energy, better things we could be doing with our talents and our passions.

I hate going through this every election year. The choice not to vote is never a foregone conclusion, and every two years I sit down and ask myself what reasons I have for voting, what I expect to accomplish and whether or not those goals are worth the compromises and concessions I would have to make. It is never easy, and it is all the more difficult because of the desperate campaigns of intimidation, emotional blackmail and downright bullying that come from both Left and Right as that sacred Tuesday in November approaches. You would think that my active engagement in community would count for something. You would think that the other 729 days I spend working my heart out as a concerned citizen and passionate member of this society might outweigh that one day every two years that I decide to stay home from the polls. But so much depends on those stupid little levers.

If politics is going to function, it must learn to function according to the examples set in nature. The erosion of the stream-bed. The falling of autumn leaves. The infinite ways in which order and structure emerge out of the on-going negotiations of immediate relationship and community participation. Instead, the current political system is more like one of those ball-and-pin games you find at the arcade — drop a marble in one of the slots at the top and watch it bounce its way down among a maze of pegs until it lands, hard and determined, in one of the walled-off slots at the bottom. A physicist might be able to calculate the possible paths among the mess of metal pins, trace the trajectories, advise you which slot along the top to choose to best ensure you win the $500 prize at the bottom. Or a statistician, perhaps, could watch enough games to predict with a reasonable amount of certainty the likelihood of each result. But this is all just game theory and abstraction, a way of avoiding direct participation and political involvement. In the end, despite the flashing lights and fabulous prizes, it’s just a tiny marble set loose inside a box.

It’s not that the game is rigged. It’s that it is contrived, constructed, manufactured — in short, unreal. The fact that such a contrivance has very real consequences only makes it more dangerous, and more compelling, but in no way more necessary or inevitable. Should I choose to willing enter into a constrictive pre-ordained role as “voter” pondering which slot to pick, which button to press, based solely on which way I hope the marble will just happen to bounce? I am not a physicist, a statistician, a sociologist, historian or political analyst, and when it comes to politics, I am certainly no gambler.

So another election day comes and goes, and I sit at home a ball of tension and frustration, witness to the usual bread and circuses. I cannot fault others for voting. We each do what we feel to be right. But I want to make an appeal to you — spend the next two years doing more than just casting your opinions to the wind. Do more than following the media from one controversy to the next, always wondering how this latest development will effect this or that person’s chances for reelection. Find your soul work, find your passion, find the gifts you have to share with your community, and then for gods’ sake, do that with all of your might. And support others in doing the same, so that they don’t burn out and give up. Be bigger than the system, be better than the system. Don’t let election day drag you down and make you small. Stop waiting for someone else to promise change.

Go to the polls today, if you must, if your conscience compels you or your fear drives you. But tomorrow, begin the work of outgrowing that fear and dependency, of helping to create a world in which corrupt politicians are drowned out by the voices and passions of everyday people working for a better world. Own your will. Live your advocacy. If you want to change America, do it.

In the meantime, here’s an amusing video from several years ago, back when it was easier to have a light-hearted perspective on these things (ah… those were the days). Enjoy: