I Vote Sandwich

I'm going to try and key this rant about voting into a more reasonable, intelligent discourse. Like political candidates though, it is altogether very likely I will not be able to deliver on my promise. Either way though, between discourse and rant, we ought to have a little fun, eh?

So Election Times are Hard Times for us in this household. Mostly because of the incessant phone calls and ringing doorbells. I have two parents that are sick and inflicted with great levels of pain every moment of the day, usually attempting to try and seize a few precious minutes of sleep. I recognize and respect the need for political campaigners to be out there making themselves known. But why is it I cannot get them to leave my tormented parents to get a little extra sleep? Come, let me beat on you with a baseball bat every five seconds for weeks on end, and *you* see how you feel when, after finally falling asleep, some automated computerized phone call jars you awake with its prattling on about whoever is running for what office. And my dad wonders why he finds the phone off the hook so often these days. 'What if someone tries to call us?' he asks, his eyelids drooping in fatigue while he absently tries to massage his ever-present back pain away. And I nod emphatically thinking, 'Exactly'.

Automated phone calls aside, let us consider the television commercials.

The thing that strikes me overwhelmingly about political ads is that they are, well, empty. They are about presenting either a glowing picture of the candidate spending time with his family and solving the state's problems, or else showing how the opposition is sneaky and deceptive and will take your money and job and spend it all on fancy cigars and raises for themselves. The time spent in the ads speaking of what the political candidate actually intends to do is pitifully small, if it is there at all. And this year has been a particularly mud-slinging one it seems. Based on the commercials I've seen, I have determined that everyone on the ballot is a no-good sleazeball and I should therefore vote for... well now, there's no one left! Hm!

Another thing that has really bothered me is the use of buzzwords/phrases. 'Wall Market Schemes' is the big one for this election, it seems. *Raises hand* ...Yes? Question? "Uhm yes. What exactly is a 'Wall Street Scheme'?" Ah, well, you see... well... hm. I know it has to do with your money. And... something bad?

Obviously, the economy of this country has but recently been squeezed through quite a change in face and structure. We had what has been termed a 'collapse' of the housing market, which has backlashed to most areas of the 'economy' (I use a lot of quotes because honestly half of what has made the economy 'collapse' has been our panicked reaction to it. The face of the economy in our country has changed, but it's even stranger to realize that the concept of 'economy' is a very abstract one built far more on future projections and promises than a physical wad of cash in someone's hand. Money in this country exists in the nonexistent form, rows of numbers in computers and the estimated value of property or stock, and is particularly vulnerable to the meteorology of the public's mob mentality at any given point. So forgive me if I perhaps am skeptical of what we term the 'economy' and how much faith or attention is attributed to it. Let's get back to wads of cash here, and stop playing with imaginary numbers. Hey look! Nested rants!). The terms 'Wall Mart Fat Cats' and 'Wall Mart Schemes' confuse me though. We are pointing our fingers of blame at this mysterious entity we call 'Wall Street', which in my mind is every bit as imaginary as our Economy. What do we really mean What does Wall Street stand for? The Stock Market itself? Stock investors? Financial analysts? Private investors? Money managers? Last I checked, Wall Street was a fairly small surface area, if we compare it to the rest of the country. And the idea of taking someone's 401k money and applying to a risky housing venture has happened cross-country and internationally. When politicians take taxpayer money and invest it, they do it in many different ways, not just in Wall Street. Really, we have merely constructed a convenient villain to point our fingers at. "Wall Street Bad!! Voter SMASH!"

Which brings me to my next point in this lovely 'discourse' we are having (see? I can quotationalize myself too!). When I was in high school in 2000 (oh so long ago!) I remember the 'Get the Vote out' campaign. I remember the statistics, something ridiculous like only 20% of Americans voted or what. You might even consider October to be 'Voting Awareness Month'-- that is, if it weren't Breast Cancer Awareness month! But see, I have the same response to all that as I did with breast cancer. Consider me aware of the need to vote. Your efforts are no longer necessary. And you know what? Urging people to vote is addressing a nonexistent problem. We are exhorted to vote as if that will avert some anarchic crisis. "Your voice matters!" one of the voting slogans goes. Does it? Well... only a tiny bit. Contrary to the way the campaigns claim, the world will continue to spin even if you don't vote. Our country will not perish, our government will not dissolve into street riots. People will still be elected, hold office, and continue to not deliver on their promises they make to the public. Your vote is a droplet of water in a great bucket. Yes, a lot of water droplets make a great wave. But without your droplet, the wave is nearly as big, and even if it's only a ripple, there are usually only two ripples anyway in any given election. Are you with one, or the other?

Ah yes. There are political parties besides Republican and Democrat, did you know that? I feel rather sorry for them, actually. They really do try so hard every election to garner that 1% or so of the vote.

My point is not to say 'voting doesn't matter'. No, my point is that the act of voting is misleading. Politics as a whole are misleading for that matter, but let's focus on voting for now and expand off that.

When we vote, we feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. We have made a decision, a choice. But this is not a choice like going to the deli and choosing a roast beef sandwich instead of a turkey one. When I choose a roast beef sandwich, I expect to get a roast beef sandwich. I would be quite annoyed if instead I got a turkey sandwich, and when questioning the deli worker, was told 'well, you were in the minority this time 'round, more people asked for turkey so that's what we have today.'

"Alright," I say, choking down my disgruntlement. "What is the turkey sandwich promising?"

'He promises to come on Whole Wheat Bread with Dijon Mustard and tomato basil aioli spread.'

...I guess I have to be okay with this. But when I take my plate and sit down, the person next to me suddenly leaps up. "WHAT IS THIS??" he screams. "I was promised that this turkey sandwich would deliver dijon mustard! This is not mustard at all, but mayonnaise!! And this is Asiago cheese bread! And there's spinach on here, I didn't want spinach!!"

And of course, I sit there smugly. 'Shoulda gotten the roast beef,' I murmur, a little louder each time someone else jumps up to find their sandwich not as they expected it, until the next day now the deli is only offering roast beef. Of course, they said it was coming on rye with pickles, but it's on pumpernickel with swiss cheese instead.

My deli-cious point here is that voting increases our sense of outrage when things don't go the way we voted them to. We are being told that voting is a way to get our voice heard, to profess our opinions and let the country know what we want. But what it really does is set us up for inevitable disappointment. Because if our chosen candidate loses, we feel like our voice didn't matter; and if he by chance wins, he will inevitably not be able to deliver on everything he promised, and thus we feel misled. Voting is a grand exercise in being disappointed, because we aren't prepared for it with the mindset of how little of it we *actually* control. Frustratingly, politicians cannot be sued for not doing what they promise to do; they can say anything they want to get into office and do whatever they want (within lawful reason) from that point.

I am not saying politicians as a whole are a lying scheming group of crooks anxious to get their hands on taxpayer money. Most if not all of them want to represent a group of people and work to make decent policy in this country. There is a great deal that is out of their control about making policy, and the reality of why so little of their promises they make during campaigns get fulfilled is because they have to fight long and hard to effect even small change. So why can't they be more open about that? Of course, because if one politician were completely realistic about how his term in office is going to go, he would sound like this: "Well, I would like to balance the budget, and give more jobs to those here instead of sending them overseas, and legalize marijuana use... but guys, do you know how many coalitions and committees and involved parties are out there? I can barely get them all to agree on where to have lunch. I mean, if I manage to create *30* new jobs it'll be a miracle." Aaaaaaand no one would vote for him. We would vote for the other guy who promises to balance the budget first thing, bring thousands of jobs back to the state, and pass laws funding the school board properly all the while playing with his children.

We have over these past hundred or so years firmly entrenched this campaign style of bright and beautiful promises. It's like any other sort of advertisement. No one would want to buy a fast food hamburger if they televised pictures of what they looked like-- squashed, flat dull-colored squares of meat with spattered condiments and wilted lettuce. No, what we see on television are the thick and juicy mounds of meat dressed in misted tomato and lettuce, crowned with the freshest and fluffiest bun. And yet, we are okay with that minor disappointment; we in fact often overlook it when getting a fast food hamburger. It tastes alright. It's not good *for* us, and it doesn't quite deliver on all its amazing promises. And advertising isn't a single isolated event; the force it exerts on us and our psyche comes from thousands and thousands of commercials and ads piled on top of themselves within our memories. And yet, would we rather fall in love with a pretty promise and then wrestle with the disappointment of finding it was untrue than to have the discouraging truth in the first place?

Then too, we come back to that two-political-party thing. It is essentially a proposal that every problem only has two possible solutions. But most intelligent folk know that's not true. Yet, when presented with a ballot where there are more or less only two options to choose from, what are we to do when we like neither option? When perhaps we have an option we've thought of? Voting does not address this issue. 'Go and campaign yourself', someone might say. Ah yes, but see, if you want to win voter support, you need to end up on either the Republican or the Democratic side, which means you need to align yourself with their general offered solution. You either get roast beef or turkey. 'But hey, I thought of this brilliant sandwich, it involves salami,' you might say. You take it to the deli suppliers. 'That's great,' they say. 'But if you want our support, backing, and money, you gotta change your stance to roast beef.' 'Or turkey. I mean, there *is* a salami guy, but... no one ever orders the salami.'

Even stranger. When I carefully read through the voter's guide this year what I found was striking-- all the campaigner's promises were the same. Balance the budget. Bring jobs. Fund the schools. Stop Wall Street schemes (er, riiiight). End corruption in the office. The only differences are about how they intend to do it... and oddly, even now the solutions are the same. Cut taxes, create jobs. The only differences are the exceedingly minor ones of who gets the cuts and where the jobs are going to come from. Which means that voting is going to effectively be split by who wants money back on their taxes, and beyond that it's about party alignment and who you happen to be biased towards or against.

So let me reiterate: I am going to go to the polls to vote for one of the two guys who have promised the same thing but probably won't fully deliver on it, and will have to more or less just deal with the result of who ends up there and what he does. So... could I not then achieve the same result by *not* voting?

If you want me to vote, I suggest you provide me with a better incentive to do so. If my vote is needed to keep some dictator from coming to power and imprisoning the entire country in a spaceship, let me know; if some lunatic is intent on raising taxes on everyone by 300%, I will ride out with my one little vote to stop him. But honestly. If some charismatic lunatic manages to charm the country and get them to vote him into office, my singular vote will not stop the mob mentality tide. The choices I am presented with, roast beef and turkey, are neither to my liking, and yet I will end up eating one or the other regardless of my attempted choice at the deli counter.

At least this deli is still one of the best in town. I hear it's a lot worse other places.

A final note: do not take my choosing not to vote as a spitting upon the freedom to do so. Choosing not to exercise a freedom is not an abdication of it, any more than choosing not to eat lunch is an abdication of my freedom to eat. A freedom is not a forced action, for then it would cease to be a freedom. I choose not to vote right now because both sandwich choices get me to the same result (a full stomach) with no avoidable impact. The pressure to vote seems built on fear, this fear that all Americans will stop voting. But let me tell you: there are, if you haven't checked lately, an awful lot of Americans out there. And so what if a lot of us don't vote? All the system is concerned with is counting the votes that are made, and making a decision between one thing or the other from there. The increase in volume of voters doesn't change all that much. If you have 10 people vote between roast beef and turkey, and then have 200 people vote between them, here's the thing: one will still win and the other will still lose. Perhaps the winner and loser will differ depending on how many and who vote. But more voters does not ensure any one side's victory.