We can all go around bashing this or that politician or issue, but nothing will change unless there is more grass roots activity. Grass roots worked to get Obama elected. But the Republican dominated Supreme Court countered with Citizens United. And that's the way it'll go under the current paradigm.
The single thing that must change is the number of educated and aware voters. We need more voters and they need to be constantly aware of what to vote for, who to vote for and why. That means an enormous effort of disseminating motive as well as information.
Below is my diary giving my personal take on this topic.
The election cycle is over. What was done is done. Whatever happens will happen irrespective of what any of us pundit wannabes say or write. It won’t matter who says what about whatever is going on. It’s out of our hands. Oh, we can write to our representatives, send letters to the editor and otherwise express our agreement or disappointment with what our elected officials do, but they’re going to do what they’re going to do. End of story.
What we citizens must do is realize that we are still a community of individuals. It doesn’t matter that we are a 72% vs. 28% voting bloc. The last several election cycles have proven that this readership and community is stuck on 72-28. We have to move on. We have to maintain a cohesive community not a fractured one. In each of our lives we must find the harmony that brought us our spouses and friends. Vicious, divisive politics is over for now. Personally, I’m done with poking everybody in the eye. It didn’t change anything. It’s still 72-28.
So, if I’m going to remain a progressive voice around here I’d better start writing about progress instead of wasting ink and your time over things that won’t change. To my Democrat readers: Not to worry. I haven’t left the farm. To everyone else: Let’s talk about golf, fishing, hiking, the Master Naturalist program and using our time and resources properly to do some good things for our neighbors and friends. Does that sound progressive to you? It does to me but it also sounds conservative, because it means that we are all trying to maintain civility and accord with one another. We are, after all, our brothers’ keepers whether or not we admit it.
Ask yourself how important those political bumper stickers are. So what if you have a Gadsden flag. Fly it below the Stars and Stripes. We’re all American citizens, after all. If you have a state flag, fly it between the Stars and Stripes and the Gadsden flag. Contemplate the positions of them. This is the correct protocol for displaying the colors. Your flagpole is certainly tall or long enough for all three, just like our hearts and souls should be big enough to accept the differences without viciousness or endless snark. I am certainly guilty of these things and I am not happy with the outcome. I don’t mean just the political outcome, but the wear and tear on my psyche and people close to me. It’s time to move on.
It was a tiring but thoroughly enjoyable experience to work as an alternate poll judge during Election Day. I got to see people I hadn’t seen for many months. Some citizens were voting for the first time and seemed somewhat dazzled by the opportunity. Seeing these different expressions made me reflect on the vast number of people in the world whose voices are never heard. When it was all over I read that only about 53% of the registered voters participated. There were still a persistent 30% of eligible voters not yet registered. That was disappointing in that it meant that less than one third of the people spoke for the other two thirds.
So, my goal for the coming years is to do things that get people registered to vote. We have to have more people believe in our system of government irrespective of how it is operated. The latter is temporary. The former is for as long as we exist. That said, those newly registered voters as well as those already registered must become aware of how the government really works and where the flaws are. They must be able to recognize those candidates who can fix problems, those issues that are best for the majority of us citizens and raises the status of attitude toward government and our community/country. We simply must change the tenor of our election cycles.
In my opinion, we cannot long endure more of this savage, scorched Earth, take-no-prisoners way of doing politics in this country. It turns people off. When they are turned off they don’t participate. When they don’t participate we fail; all of us. I refuse to fail. How about you?