Why I Vote (and why it matters which songs play at the prom)

This Tuesday is finally Election Day.

I can’t wait until this latest (dreadful) foray into the worst caverns of our sorry political process has passed and I can go back to pretending that our system is somehow not ruined and that the people we elect to “serve us” in making the democratic matrix successful are really good people doing good things for good reasons. Wince. Gasp. Where’s the Single Malt.

I am taken back to high school politics because it is where I first learned about shadow government and because I’m still surprised that the idea of a “best candidate” is somehow separate from politics. I was a fringe candidate. I was not the most popular nor was I the loudest. Yet, part of me believed I had the ability to make a difference in something as vital to our collective well-being as the senior prom.

It was a time in my life when I cared about things like the senior prom. I cared about the color of the table cloths and the official theme song of the 1988 Senior Prom (Hold On To The Night by Richard Marx). The rocker dude who was elected president was promptly surrounded by close friends (conveniently elected to the supporting junta) thus creating a sense of balance in the world to a small conclave of constituents. To be honest, I don’t remember my prom but I look happy enough in the pictures.

By the time I got to college I could care less about running for office and focused more on what the people elected to offices were doing poorly. I chose not to enter the fraternity system at a school that was over 70% Greek.Instead, I lived in a vegetarian co-op called the Peace House where we hosted meetings for PETA, various anti-war and anti-nuclear organizations, Took Back the Night and lambasted fraternities when another woman was raped or another student died from hazing. I thrived on feeling disenfranchised. I was good at it, too. On the other hand, I drove to Burger King for meat fixes and a non co-ed bathroom on a regular basis.

I studied political science in college and even did a semester abroad in Geneva, Switzerland where I studied International Relations and took my lunch at the World Health Organization’s cafeteria (where food was cheap). I often sat and listened to frustrated global aid workers discuss their inability to effect change due to a seemingly endless bureaucracy. Many of these folks appeared resentful that they had committed their lives to making a difference “out there” yet they seemed to question how big a difference they truly made on a daily basis.

After college I got an internship at the Anti-Defamation League in Manhattan because I wanted to pursue a career in documentary film making and the ADL had seemingly effective public service messages on television where they reminded society to be nice. On my third day, a major story broke accusing the ADL of conspiring with the FBI and foreign governments to rid the world of bad people who say bad things about minorities. I mistakenly got off on the third floor returning from lunch and walked into a massive document shredding party. Wrong floor. Interesting, useful, somewhat disheartening window into organizations meant to do good in the world. I was removed from the project I had been working on and instead transcribed hours of anti-Semitic rants perpetrated by a Nation of Islam radio station out of Harlem. That was not fun. I had my own opportunity to consider whether my time and energy was being well served.

I was elected president of my class in graduate school largely due to a dearth of challengers. Not surprising, my fellow counseling students were less concerned about the mechanism of change and focused more on feeling and being heard. I organized opportunities for students to air their dissatisfaction with course selection processes and facilitated more areas on campus for students to study and relax. It wasn’t much, but I took it seriously and listened to what students wanted and helped people feel they had a voice in the system. I felt good about my role and considered the system to be a relatively functional process.

So, as a practicing psychotherapist, I’m pretty removed from the day to day political process in this country. I don’t canvass for candidates and I don’t subliminally insert my picks for office in the minds of my clients as they speak about this or that. I do, however, care about my community. In fact, I always have. Even when my input meant Richard Marx would somehow steal the official song status for the prom, I felt like my vote mattered. Things have gotten really grown-up since those days have passed. Issues of immigration, taxation, and legalization have made their way into my home. Matters of the heart and the mind, the body and the soul, have crept into a personal discourse between my consciousness and that of the tribe.

I do care. I believe things should be one way and not the other and I also believe that the majority matters. I also feel the frustration of a stubborn itch in my mind that suggests my voice doesn’t matter. I watch the political process in this country being hijacked by home grown terrorists who don’t want a real dialogue but simply want to steer us all into pillars we have erected and see if they fall. Then they win? Is that what it’s all about? The truth is, I don’t care which songs played at the prom but I do care about how we treat one another in the process of decision making. I’m not sure if my vote really matters this week. I’m not sure if I can effect change in our society by choosing one candidate over another. However, I believe passionately in process. And right now, this whole election thing is our process. If I don’t, at least, cast my vote, then I remove myself from the process and wind up either silently disgruntled or a terrorist in the making. So for now, I vote.