Are you disgusted by politics and considering not voting this November? I understand the impulse to write off politics and to believe your vote doesn’t matter. I did when I “dropped out” in the early 70s. I’d witnessed, as a teenager, the violence of the 1968 election season in which Democrat Hubert Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon, who ran on restoring law and order after the assassination of Martin Luther King caused riots, and peaceful protests against the Vietnam War were often met with police brutality. In 1969, draft age, I attended massive protests against the war. I returned from D.C. stinking of tear gas realizing that fighting a well-armed government was suicide. To avoid supporting the war machine, I would move to the country, raise my own food and be as self-sufficient as possible. We were called hippies, and the long hair, at least for me, was partly a statement that I was willing to endure taunting and possible violence, increased attention from police, and difficulty getting work in solidarity with African Americans and other people of color who faced discrimination on a daily basis.
A few years later I landed in Roane County, with some rudimentary carpentry, gardening and musical skills and bought a small property for next to nothing. My path to becoming a taxpaying and politically engaged citizen began. I cut my hair and married my girlfriend when she got pregnant. We made a living of sorts as musicians and I got a job as a logger. I remember how blatantly racist some people in the area were, talking with pride about not allowing blacks to live “up Elk River.” Though we were different because we were from “out-of-state,” as white kids, we were treated well and accepted by the community. We were poor, but today I recognize that easy acceptance as white privilege. I have since moved to Charleston and appreciate the fact that the population here is more diverse.
I found various jobs while attending WV State College to become a teacher. During the teacher strike of 1990, in the wake of President Reagan’s mass firing of air traffic controllers for an “illegal” strike as we were doing, I started paying attention to politics. Gaston Caperton, a Democrat, was governor, and we didn’t know if we'd be fired. Thankfully, Caperton demonstrated a difference between Democratic and Republican politicians which holds true today—Democrats use government to try to solve problems, Republicans try to limit government except when they use it to enforce their ideas of law and order or defense spending. Caperton settled the strike by promising raises and changes in education. After a series of town hall meetings around the state, and with the support of the majority Democratic state legislature, soon teachers had a $5,000 raise over three years (a 25% increase for me—I’d started at under $15,000/yr). We also gained some power in the workplace through faculty senates which received a small budget for school supplies.
Elections are important, but Americans are becoming suspicious of their fairness. If you’re Republican, you probably believe what is known as the “Big Lie,” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump (spoiler alert: he lost it--then tried to steal it himself). If you’re a Democrat you likely see that extreme gerrymandering means Democrats can’t easily win true representation in the House of Representatives. Senate rules such as the filibuster give a minority of the population the ability to thwart the will of the majority. The same is true of the system of electing presidents and in the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court who were mostly appointed by presidents who hadn’t even won a majority of votes, though the electoral college or the Supreme Court made them winners. Almost all of us feel that democracy in the United States is not working well, and sadly, some seem ready to take up arms against it if their candidate doesn’t win.
Maintaining our democracy depends on us voting “like our lives depend on it.” Generally, people “vote their pocketbooks,” and though presidents have little control over gas prices and inflation, they get blamed for them, and President Biden’s approval numbers are low, which usually means the opposition party is set to make big gains. Perhaps because of the overturning of Rowe v. Wade, gas prices coming down, the work of the January 6th Committee, and the retrieval by the FBI of classified documents Trump had taken to Mar-a-Lago (violating the Presidential Records Act), more Americans now report being concerned about our democracy than the economy.
The best way to oppose those trying to weaken our democracy is to vote. Yes, protest peacefully if you feel strongly about an issue, volunteer to help on campaigns or to help run fair elections. Try to read or view mainstream sources of information that have fact checkers instead of depending on what your friends, neighbors, or co-workers are saying. Don’t trust unchecked information on Facebook or other “non-mainstream” sources.
Violence is not a solution. Our system of checks and balances isn’t perfect, but it’s what we have to work with. The percentage of people who vote is low compared to most democracies, and if we can raise that percentage significantly, perhaps we can safeguard our democracy. Make sure you’re registered, find out what the rules are for early voting or voting by mail, or vote in person on November 8th!
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