It’s my last day in Buffalo before I head back, so there were some things that I needed to get out of the way. Like buying a train ticket for my eight-hour journey back to New York and submitting my absentee ballot for the Presidential primary. Although I’ve legally been able to vote for almost two years, I’m sad to say that up until this point in my life, I had yet to ever cast an actual vote. I hate to say that I was one of those statistical young people that failed to vote, but it’s the truth. Although everybody really should get out and vote, I kind of understand now why so many young people fresh into college don’t. For me, my parents never got around to mailing me my absentee ballot. Two years in a row.
Needless to say, the first vote I ever cast was a big one. I spent much of the morning watching YouTube videos of the candidates’ various speeches and interviews. It’s really difficult to make a concrete decision about a candidate when every single piece of political propaganda they put out is so obviously edited death for maximum effect. Every video opened with shots of various audience members, usually babies or young children, followed by a speech about how the country needs change and how so-and-so is the one to do it. Many of these videos have a soundtrack of folky acoustic guitar music playing in the background, presumably to make the speech more moving.
I really hate it that I am this way, but I am way to susceptible to good advertising. And at the end of the day, each candidate had won me over in their own way. How am I supposed to know who to vote for if all of the candidates are trying really hard to be likable? They all seem like nice people. They all seem to have their heads in the right places. Let’s just elect all of them!
In a way, I think that this is a very dangerous time to be running for president. Because of people like me who get caught up way too easily in gossip, sensationalism, and novelties that cloud our judgement. Our culture right now is a very angry one. I’m not sure if it was this way like fifteen or twenty years ago, but I think people today tend to be kind of nasty. Just look at the popularity of online gossip rags right now. Celebrities no longer have any respect or even the mystique that they used to have. Not that Hollywood and politics are exactly equatable, but there are similarities in the way people regard celebrities and political figures. We all take sides way too quickly, we’re too stubborn about who we support, and our acidic harsh words can often be uneducated and undeserved. Perhaps politics has become too pop-cultural or perhaps pop culture has become too political. Or maybe I compare pop culture to EVERYTHING because it’s all I know how to do.
Anyway. I was so nervous when my father and I went to the board of elections today that I was shaking. I pleaded with my father to just let me take the ballot home because I didn’t think I was ready to make an educated decision about who to vote for. I told him that if I made a decision then and there, it would probably be completely impulsive. He told me that that’s how a lot of people end up voting and it was better to just get it over with because I’d probably just procrastinate anyway. He had a point. I filled out a form and a minute or two later I had a pen and an absentee ballot in my hands. I went up to one of the little cardboard cubicles they had set up on the counter and leaned inside of it for several minutes. I ended up making a decision after a lot of thought, folded up the form, and sealed it inside of an envelope. My first vote!