Hello!,
I guess I'll start off by introducing myself properly as I am new here. I am 19 years old, born and raised to a nice, liberal household in South Jersey and I now go to a middle-of-nowhere University in the eastern portion of Pennsylvania where I run cross country and track. I actually casted my first vote last year for then-Gov. Jon Corzine in his re-election fight but this year, I had the "honors" of holding my nose and voting for John Adler in the hotly contested New Jersey 3rd district as he faces off against Jon Runyan (OT-Eagles....oh and R).
I am aware that the intro is a little dry but there's a reason why I felt compelled to post this. As I stated, I go to a slightly-rural Pennsylvania college. Being on the cross country team, we run throughout the towns and I get to see a nice collection of Confederate flags, the n-word tossed around at us (even though we are all white and grotesquely pale at that) and when those two mix; it is pretty obvious what these people believe in huh?
The best part about this is that according to my teammates, this is the more liberal part of the state outside of Philly; so I guess the Pennsyltucky thing is true.
Anyway, as I realized my vote was being sent; I asked around on a run to see if anyone else voted. Predictably, I received a bunch of anti-Obama replies as I usually get joked on for being so liberal in such a rural-ish area but what's the one reason I get when people discuss why they dislike our President?
Healthcare? No.
Weak? No.
Illuminati? No.
The most popular answer was that if he weren't black, he wouldn't have won the election. Now, we all know that's a pretty ridiculous and wrong assumption, but I truly hope that people my age demographic who aren't Obama voters can't think of him like that, can they? If it means anything though, they were highly enthusiastic when they said this...
That's what gets me about a lot of people I know. My home district is a swing district and I am well aware that most people who vote probably don't know too much on why they hate the person other than a few stereotypes or the fact they hate whomever is in charge.
Let me throw a bunch of stereotypes and see why I feel the Ignorance Gap is much higher than the Enthusiasm Gap.
Alex Jones and his site have a cult-like following amongst my friends. There aren't a lot of them who agree with him, but the ones who do are horrifically vocal about it to the point, where I can't even go on my Newsfeed without seeing something ridiculous like, Jay-Z is the only reason Obama won and here are five reasons how. It's mindless BS but the ignorance of the public falls for it. Why? Maybe they know things aren't going well now but think the world operates exactly like Wag The Dog starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. Conspiracies about 9/11 even further freak me out amongst my age group.
As I mentioned with Obama and the "real" reason how he won, race will always be prevalent even though I guarantee an overwhelming majority of anti-Obama voters aren't racist at all. However, indirect mentions are what drives prejudice in this nation. It's like that whole argument that people use like "See, I'm not racist....I know a guy who bought a Public Enemy CD!"
If there is a possible silver lining, it's the fact that those kids aren't voting and they even say that they don't even know who their congressperson is and what district they are in. I'm not sure if rooting for the reluctance of people to vote or even register is necessarily a good thing, but I can firsthand see that the laziness of the ignorant is pretty high. If they are too lazy to look into facts or easily swayed into extreme opinions, what makes you think that they will actually take the time out of their hands to ya know, vote? As I said, the people who felt that way about Obama were highly vocal in their opposition but they won't vote.
Since I have a very small sample size of people that I know in comparison to an actual pollster, I can't pretend to be an expert in any sense of the word so please bare with me if I come across as a bit arrogant. I'm just a tad fired up.
I just wonder why people feel that way. Have the Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins of the world really convinced us that the media, sans Fox News, is pushing the President's agenda and it's elitist to be liberal? I guess the people that call someone whose father who was fully unemployed for quite a bit of time and training to become a high school cross country/track coach "elitist", then the ball is in their court as well as ours.
That being said, tomorrow could be a catastrophe; it's definitely not out of the cards but stranger things have happen. I didn't think I'd see the Phillies win a World Series title after all. But I prefer relying on incompetence and ignorance as opposed to a true, GOP tidal wave.