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To Vote Or Not To Vote? "Everyone who grows up in our society is bound to become aware...that an individual vote is more nearly a form of self-expression and of legitimation than of influence and that the link between elections and value allocations is tenuous. The reiteration in patriotic oratory and grade school civics lessons that the people control the government comes to be recognized as a way of insuring support for governmental actions people dislike and over which they exercise no effective control." -- Murray Edelman, Constructing The Political Spectacle
“Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won’t be. Any individual who is able to raise $25 million to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent oil, or aerospace, or banking, or whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Certainly he will never represent the people of the country, and they know it. Hence the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress.” -- Gore Vidal, The Decline & Fall Of The American Empire
Reasons For Voting: 1. A vote, even if relegated to the status of mere "self-expression," can be cast to utter dissent and to throw cold water in the face of oligarchs, who fret, however unnoticeably, at any hint of a "legitimation crisis." Small consolation, perhaps, but a consolation nevertheless. 2. A frustrated and impatient electorate may pine for a third viable party; it may wish the political process to be fairer, more inclusive, less discriminatory. Might not voting for an obscure candidate or an alternative party be the first step in that direction? 3. In certain states propositions are put on ballots and either accepted or rejected. Often there's a momentous issue at stake -- e.g., the medicinal use of marijuana in California and Arizona. Does not a citizen have a minimal obligation to stay informed and offer input on local issues? What excuse does even the disaffected voter have for not weighing in on ballot initiatives? 4. If the wise among us turn our philosophical noses up at the notion of voting, then practically, how is society better off for our abstention? There is a penalty for not participating in politics, Plato said, and that is to end up with statesmen far less noble and honorable than ourselves. 5. Voting may well be insignificant, a waste of time, but do we not do countless other things that can be judged in the same manner? Would we regret handing a mendicant a five-dollar bill if someone informed us that we wouldn't really be changing the person's life at all -- that in fact "he's still going to be poor one way or the other"? Is there not an inherent value to some deeds, and is not voting one of them? 6. There may be the all-important single issue which can affect the fate of millions of people. Choosing the right President, some say, can tilt the balance of the U.S. Supreme Court either to the left or to the right, and the smallest tilt could decide, for instance, whether thousands of women continue to have unfettered access to safe abortions, or whether judicial decisions on a host of other issues are reasonable and judicious. The election to the House of Representatives of that "great man or woman" may make a war resolution all the more difficult, or the decision to eliminate whole social programs all the less likely, or a check against the power of the opposing party all the easier. Some argue, perhaps not incorrectly, that had Al Gore ascended to the presidency, the United States would not have invaded Iraq and embraced the doctrine of preemption. The war has cost countless Iraqi and American lives, drained the national treasury, alienated the nation's allies, and, if anything, made it easier for terrorist groups to recruit members and build worldwide credibility. So maybe voting matters even when two mostly indistinguishable, unexciting candidates square off against one another.
Reasons For Not Voting: 1. The citizens of America do not elect some spectacular, benevolent man or woman to public office and dis-elect the banks, the Federal Reserve, the military industry, the collective media, the high-tech corporations. A rational person may well find it ludicrous that elections can exist whose outcomes will in nowise affect tax policy, foreign policy, fiscal and monetary policy, and military policy. 2. An election which offers little in the way of choice is not one that should be taken seriously. One example need only be cited here. In the 2000 Presidential election George Bush and Al Gore had much in common: neither man supported a single payer healthcare system; neither was against increased military spending; neither believed that the national minimum wage should be raised to at least $8/hour; neither entertained the idea of suspending the broadcast license of the big television networks; neither favored dismantling the Central Intelligence Agency or the Internal Revenue Service; neither favored complete public funding of national and statewide elections; neither favored linking aid to Israel to a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories. On all the "big issues" there was scarcely a disagreement, scarcely a bone of contention, and anyone really wishing to vote her conscience heard the familiar refrain that she'd be "throwing her vote away" by picking a third-party candidate. 3. Political advertisements are loathsome and condescending, often pandering to a given segment of the voting population, often juggling facts and figures in a misleading if not entirely deceitful way. In the absence of accurate, thorough information and a protracted discussion of the issues, don't people end up voting for commercials and slogans? Should someone vote against John Smith because his adversary's commercial says that he "voted to let 2,000 murderers out on furlough"? Should a thousand echoes of "John Smith, Wrong For Pennsylvania, Wrong For You!" decide whether his opponent is elected to high office? 4. The very nature of modern elections precludes the emergence of authentic, thoughtful, engaging candidates. There is, first, the familiar burden of not offending the lobbyists of corporations, not brooking some fanciful notion of reform that goes directly against the interests of powerful blocs of voters. There is the imperative of looking "right" on television, of not being "controversial" or "mean-spirited," not offending the sweet mothers in the suburbs who are frightened by handguns; the imperative of not taking a position that may smack in any way of being "anti-family" or "unAmerican" or "out of the mainstream." Take too principled a stand on the issues and face calumny from the NRA, from feminist groups, from the medical and insurance industries, from print and broadcast journalists, from the elder statesmen of one's own party (recall the fate of Jerry Brown in 1992, Pat Buchanan in 1996, Howard Dean in 2004). 5. In America having money, or access to money, is the chief qualification for office. Being connected is everything. It doesn't really seem to matter who the actual person is, whether he is deeply intelligent and compassionate, well cultured and well traveled, sympathetic to those who are poor or inclined toward a profoundly spiritual view of life. A politician is "tough" if he is willing to rain bombs down on enemies; he is prudent, responsible and mature if he sees the world as the CEO of a conglomerate corporation typically would; he is "presidential" if he recites the same old hackneyed lines about "leadership," comes across as "positive" on television, and says nothing to offend or startle media muckamucks.
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