Let’s do an exercise. Don’t worry, I won’t make you get out of your chair.
Are you ready?
Okay. Name one person (in your head) who agrees with you on everything. Voting rights, LGBT issues, gun control or lack thereof, whistleblowers, minimum wage, women’s rights, health care, taxes, corporations are or are not people, the NFL should or shouldn’t remain a non-profit…those and all the rest.
Got one?
No?
Okay, let’s try another. Ready?
Name one perfect person. We’re going to limit this one to American citizens because Tom Hiddleston.
Was that one a little easier? No?
Okay, so can we agree that we’ve dispensed with the common reasons people don’t vote for certain people? (I disagree with him on such and such, she did this one thing once that I hated and I’ll never forgive her.)
Now for the “I don’t pay any attention to politics” part.
Check off (in your head, paper, doesn’t matter) all the things you have any sort of opinion on.
- Restraining orders
- armed robbery
- child abuse
- Illegal immigration
- Legal immigration
- Companies who don’t pay taxes
- Paying taxes
- no-call list
- space exploration
- Food stamps–too much or too little support
- Health care
- police brutality
- Legal marijuana
- quality of teachers
- quantity of teachers
- paying teachers
- Fire departments
- police brutality
- police support
- police outfitted with military gear
- schools
- crosswalks
- highways
- if you ever walk, drive, or bike over a bridge
- the economy
- minimum wage
- money for college
- War
- the military
- terrorism
- backscatter xray machines
- eagles
- wolves
- solar power
- hurricanes
- floods
- tornadoes
- volcanoes
- earthquake preparedness
- exploding trains
- exploding factories
- rising sea levels
- creationism taught in science class
- evolution taught in science class
- Biblical science, period
- separation of church and state
- LGBT rights
- Racism
- Sexism
- Reproductive rights
- teen pregnancy
- birth control
- how your taxes are spent
- corruption in government
- two-party system
- gerrymandering
- a country run by rich people who have no experience of working for themselves
- Congress working __ days and doing NOTHING and bragging about it
- Maternity leave
- paternity leave
- paid sick days for the guy who has been running to the bathroom all morning because he can’t afford to miss a day of work and is now about to MAKE YOUR LUNCH
- Highway safety
- driverless cars
- uninsured drivers
- teen drivers
- cross-country truck drivers who haven’t had enough sleep and are right beside you on the freeway
- Motor Vehicle departments with inconvenient hours
- potholes
- confusing traffic signals
- just plain wrong traffic signals
- every other street has an overpass for the train, but the one YOU need has a train blocking it every blasted morning
- Clean air
- Clean water
- Fracking causes earthquakes
- save the trees
- save the whales
- save the humans
- more jobs
- better jobs
- less work/more pay
- more work/less pay
- Walmart in your neighborhood
- Walmart in someone else’s neighborhood
- Walmart pays so little that you pay for their workers’ families to eat
- Amazon is too big
- Leave Amazon alone
- Drones in other countries
- Drones in the U.S.
- US-run prisons in other countries
- Prisons in the U.S.
- Walruses
- Polar Bears
- the Northwest Passage
- Native Americans
- Social Security
- County hospitals
- Common Core
- No Child Left Behind
- Light rail
- the now-deceased DOMA
- The Supreme Court
- The percentage of women in Congress as opposed to the general population
- States’s rights
- the War on Drugs
- abandoned animals
- dangerous animals
- E. coli in your food
- metal in your food
- Lead in your paint
- cell phone “jailbreaking”
- Internet “slow lanes”
- Cable rates
- liquor licensing
- people driving drunk near you or people you love
- veterans who need jobs
- veterans who need health care
- veterans who need help
- homeless veterans
- homeless anyone
- People selling newspapers on street medians
- people sleeping in parks
- City parks
- state parks
- national parks
- funding for national parks
- wildlife preservation
- community development
- car safety
- gas mileage
- loud parties at 2 a.m. (for or against)
- Buying a lemon car
- home foreclosures
- Wall Street
- people who don’t work for their money (investors) being taxed less than people who DO work for their money
- BPAs in your water bottle
- Recycling
- roller coasters not killing you
- selling booze at gun shows
- selling guns to anyone with money at gun shows
- handing UZIs to nine-year-olds
- mental health services
- drug rehabilitation
- Ebola response
- airplanes
- where airplanes can fly
- who can fly airplanes
- who directs airplanes around each other
If you checked anything on that not-exhaustive list, congratulations. You care about politics.
Now, if you haven’t yet, will you please make a plan and go vote? Unless you can’t, since voter laws are becoming more restrictive because they don’t want you to vote.
But wait. If they don’t want you to vote, could it be because it actually does matter? So if you can’t vote, maybe make a plan to help someone else vote?