Are We Voting for Ideals or for Individuals?
Are we voting for ideals or for individuals when Americans go to the ballot box every two years? Does voting for an ideal make more of a difference than voting for an individual? I mean what can one person achieve without allies. But are there repercussions for only voting on ideals and not knowing the person you are choosing to represent you? So many thoughts from one question and so many potential answers. Why should I even bother answering this question if there are a thousand answers? It is important to answer this question because it is a measure of how well you participate in the American experiment that is democracy.
Could you answer that question if a random person asked you at 9am on a Monday morning? Well first of all, what are you doing in my house cause you’re not gonna catch me outside before noon on a Monday. That’s my day off. In all seriousness let’s be honest, you probably could not, and that’s ok, but you want your answer to be yes. None of us want to be taken advantage of in any situation, when you vote you’re giving a person power and authority to decide matters for thousands of people and you don’t want your representatives being the ones that take advantage. How do we prevent that? Vote for a person who shares your ideals, but without knowing how they are as a person or vote for a person you like but don’t agree with? The answer to that really lies with the individual because it measures how far you are willing and able to participate in democracy.
A single mother of two twin boys who works 24/7 just to stay above the poverty line won’t have time to answer any of the questions I’m asking. I’m a 19 year old who volunteers for campaigns and I don’t blame her. Our democracy isn’t designed for people that live paycheck to paycheck or who are below the poverty line and that’s how a democracy can die, but that’s a conversation for another day. Each person must determine for themselves what they are looking for in a candidate and you can’t tell a person otherwise. At the end of the day it’s their choice. That ladies and gentlemen is the entire point of democracy and its beauty, but it can also cause chaos like we see in today’s world. The chaos only accomplishes one thing: more stress and limits on what democracy can do. The more questions you ask yourself in these situations, the more you can think critically and the more critically you think means the more we will be able to answer questions tougher than just whether we vote for ideals or individuals?
