I'VE NEVER VOTED, AND THIS SEASON, I DON'T INTEND TO START.
by Mitchell Eubank
I’ve never voted for anyone to claim a position of power in my entire life, despite being old enough to do so since 2008. There just hasn’t been a candidate I agree with on everything. Everyone says that this election is one of the most important in our lifetimes. Even then, I’m not moved to vote for any single candidate. I remember taking part in an online political survey that resembled a teen magazine personality quiz when I was young, and according to the results, I fell on the libertarian left. That was at least a decade ago. Needless to say, a few more decades of national public discourse moving to the right, resulting in many issues I either was or currently am in favor of being ignored or neglected by politicians and candidates on both sides of the aisle, have left me confused and perturbed as to who I should support this election, or even if I should support anyone at all. Contrary to the cliché, I don’t want to throw my vote away by choosing not to show up at the polls.
As I saw how everyone started filtering into a camp, Democrat or Republican or third party, I started to think about how they came to their decisions. It just seemed so impossible to finalize my own. Based on what everyone was telling me, this election and the presidency that would stem from it would affect me on a personal level, and it would be under that caveat that I figured I needed to see the decision-making process from perhaps a more relative perspective. I decided I wanted to interview two of my relatives, who preferred not to be named, so I will call them Justine and Kelly. I did this to learn about their past and present political upbringings in the hopes that learning about them might help me figure out my own reluctance to participate in politics.
I spoke to Kelly first. Kelly is my cousin who lives in Spotsylvania and works as a history teacher at a middle school.
Prior to her college days at her mother’s alma mater in Virginia, Kelly’s political beliefs weren’t fully informed. Her parents emphasized “Christian values, [a] smaller tax initiative, and support of the middle class worker.” They believed that “hard work, honesty, and belief in God are all important to succeed in life.” They usually aligned themselves with the Republican Party and more importantly a Christian candidate. As most people do at that age, she followed behind her parents on politics, at least early on in her voting years.
But something shifted in college for Kelly. Kelly “took it upon [herself] to do more research about the current political state,” comparing her beliefs with other, opposing viewpoints. It was then that she became more moderate. Thanks to studying for her history major and social science minor, she was quick to listen to any arguments presented to her from classmates and professors alike, to strengthen her own stance with necessary evidence. As Kelly clarified, “While my early beliefs are different from the beliefs that I have now, I see that as personal growth and realization of what I really support, instead of the beliefs of my parents.”
As a teacher, these days, her biggest concern when choosing a candidate is with reforming the American educational system. She believes that teachers shouldn’t be saddled with testing and should have more independence in their classrooms, something the Republican Party supports.
What makes her torn is that she also supports expanding welfare and gun laws. She supports efforts to help people in need and to restrict gun usage, both of which are issues supported primarily by Democrats. Having been politically neutral since college, it turns out, made Kelly find the flaws with a number of claims made by both parties of late, when she wasn’t also agreeing with some of them. She has a hard time choosing a candidate because her beliefs stand on both sides of the political spectrum. Instead, she votes based on the individual candidate. Regardless, she doesn’t believe that one election can solve all of the country’s problems.
Justine admitted that she has “not paid much attention to the current news” due to election overexposure. Justine further said that “the news is never good” when it focuses on “backbiting and negative slander;” if anything, “it’s depressing.”
Next, I spoke to Justine. Justine is my aunt who also lives in Spotsylvania and is a music teacher at two elementary schools. She, too, spent her formative years in politics the same way her daughter would years later, being raised on the tenets of family and faith. “I have never selected a candidate solely on what party they represent. My choices have always been influenced by the candidate platform and their Christian values. I think my parents felt the same and they set that example for me,” Justine explained.
While she has “never rooted for a specific party” over the others, to Justine, it was the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that led her to turn her back on the Democratic Party. The issues she has with Clinton tie back to “his disrespect of the position [of] president" as "an adulterer and womanizer [who] abused his power” while in office. Her problems with Obama are twofold, stemming from the fact that “[he] hasn't used his position as president [to help] smooth out the racial tensions in our country,” instead “[pushing] his Obamacare plan on the American public which has caused many problems by pressing insurance companies to lessen their coverage and raise their premiums.” Justine “saw…what could happen when the wrong person was in control” through their respective presidencies.
Unlike with Kelly, Justine found that spending more time exposed to politics actually helped her with solidifying her Christian stance. Today, Justine considers herself anti-abortion. She also doesn’t agree with many welfare programs, saying that “I feel our [government] should help those in need, [namely] the elderly and disabled,” instead of providing “too many free services to people that could work to take care of themselves.”
In each of my interviews I learned what I might take away when I make the decision to vote. As Kelly explained to me, trust is a key factor in how she chooses whom to vote for; “I find it much easier to support a candidate [with] an informed stance and [who] honestly supports hot-button issues with a consistent point of view,” she said. She gave the same advice to voters this Election Day, saying, “It is difficult to develop your own political beliefs if you have not made your own discoveries or conducted your own research.”
I began to understand just why the protests, the arrests, and all of the controversy of the last year have plagued many a mind of late, to the point that several youth voters already hated this election season before it had truly begun. As the cycle has progressed, the list of scandals had outgrown the list of candidates by a hefty margin, and I was feeling fatigued.
I tried to be an optimist, tried to keep from skewing towards the cynical, and tried to find the silver lining in each new cloud that formed over my head, and it seems that I may have found one, at last, in my family. They showed me that I wasn’t alone in having these feelings and concerns, and that the least I could do was help them make their lives worth living, something far more priceless than a new administration. Odds are I will not vote this November, or maybe in any election. But I’m thankful to have family members whose experience can guide my own decisions.