I recently went to the RMV (Registry of Motor Vehicles for those of you outside Massachusetts) to surrender my Pennsylvania driver’s license. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to but it made my insurance company happy and now they can renew my policy. During this wonderful visit to hell’s waiting room I had the chance to change my voter’s registration. While filling out the form something occurred to me – I’ve been registered to vote since I was 18 and not once did I actually vote in person.
It got me thinking about all those times I went out of my way to request an absentee ballot. Were my votes ever actually counted? Even if they did count, I haven’t lived in Pennsylvania for over four years. Why should they count? Do I really care about who gets to sit on the county court in Bucks County when I don’t plan on living there again? Now that I pay taxes to a new state of residence I suppose I should take my civic duty a bit more seriously. But it’s going to be a struggle…
I grew up having a very apathetic view toward politics. Looking back on my grade school education everything was explained in a cookie cutter mentality. Are you red or blue? Anything other than that and you were viewed as a nut case. In eighth grade during the 2000 election I distinctly remember a teacher joking that the kids who supported Nader were all a bunch of pot heads.
It’s tough to recall one social studies class I took during my K through 12 stint that didn’t reinforce how lovely the two-party system was. It was simple enough for anyone to understand – why think about the issues on a case by case basis when you can subscribe to some mob’s school of thought? Why rock the boat of tradition? Maybe I just drew the short straw a bunch of times and ended up with some crappy teachers. Maybe growing up in a state that was notoriously regarded as purple contributed to this type of mentality.
Whatever the case may be, I feel like I’m not alone in my experience with learning that American politics is nothing but a giant game of “Us vs. Them”.
“I feel like I’m not alone in my experience with learning that American politics is nothing but a giant game of “Us vs. Themâ€.”
You certainly aren’t alone in that regard. American politics is indeed nothing more than them vs. us. The “them” in this case is the Democratic and Republican parties, the ruling political class, and their delusional acolytes and supporters. The “us” is everyone else.