Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
-Sydney J. Harris
Congratulations. You have just survived possibly the longest election in U.S. history. Depending on whom you voted for, either jump for joy or use this paper as a tissue to wipe away your bitter tears of defeat. Now that’s all over with, let’s break down exactly what is to come.
Our new president elect is going to select his cabinet, change the drapes in the oval office and settle into his posh new house. The rest of us will go on with our lives and praise our “higher power” that we don’t have to hear about politics again for another four years. Wrong.
It needs to be different this time. This election was more contested than it needed to be because the majority of the nation was not paying attention. In all honesty, anyone who wasn’t casting a vote for Obama by September wasn’t paying attention. It still blows my mind that as of Monday morning, 5 percent of the American population was listed as undecided voters in the CNN polls. How on God’s green Earth could you still be undecided when you’ve had almost a year to choose? If that’s the case, you have not been paying attention, either. If you haven’t, you are guilty of dereliction of the most important duty shared by all citizens of this country: the right to decide who will be leading you through the next four, even possibly eight years of your life.
Everyone likes to throw around the statistic that there are more people who vote weekly in American Idol than in the presidential election every four years. People say it for a laugh, but it’s not funny; it’s sickening. There was a time when participation in the political process was not a hassle – it was an honor to be vied for. Today, it’s more important to decide the future of our next big pop singer than it is to decide the future of our country.
The point is, the presidential election is not something to be dreaded. It should be welcomed. It should be anticipated. It should be a nationwide celebration of the fact that we have the right to choose who is in charge of our country – a right I believe we take far too much for granted. Just because the election is over doesn’t mean you can stop paying attention again. This is not some exam where you can procrastinate until the last night and then expect to make an informed decision.
Don’t stop paying attention now. Keep reading the newspaper. Keep watching the news. Make sure our new president is doing what he said he’d do and doing the right thing for our country. That is our job. That is our duty. That is how we earn the right to call ourselves citizens of the United States and that is what will make this country great again.
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