Stupidity Wins Landslide Election

Ryan Manning

Stupidity Wins Landslide Election

As I first began to read the article, I felt that if I didn’t vote then I’d be a menace to society. I mean the man opens up with some pretty strong phrases. I don’t want to be scorned or face possible jail time if I don’t vote. If these were the consequences, then I’d be afraid not to vote. And that is exactly what the man in this article is saying.

The man writing this article seems to be of the Democratic Party. Perhaps he is unaffiliated, but he doesn’t seem neutral enough for that. For instance, he seems to criticize the Republicans for using neutral organizations, such a girl scouts, to sway the vote towards their side. In his mind, this is not a good idea at all. Voting just to vote is not intelligent and it may sway the vote towards a “boob” of a candidate. I completely agree with this, which makes me think that he is probably trying to communicate with the younger generation of his time. He wants to curtail useless voting and encourage voters to make a more informed decision when they vote. After all, older generations tend to be more set in their ways, so it seems unintelligent to try and convince them to change.

This “get out the vote” thing seems very similar to the “vote or die” campaign that MTV ran during the last election. They also used neutrals, like Justin Timberlake, not to sway to a certain party, but just to get people to vote. I hated this with a fiery passion. It was not the blatant use of star power that annoyed me; it was the fact that the idea of making an intelligent vote was never stressed. People can go vote all day, but what does it matter if they don’t know who they’re voting for? It is necessary to research candidates. Look at the president we have now. Bush may have seemed like a good choice once upon a time (like eight years ago), but why was he re-elected over someone who was obviously more qualified. It is because people have a tendency to fall in to patterns in life. I do it, you do it, we all do it. It is just human nature to “fear” change. However, sometimes change is necessary. If you’re in a war that has been failing since day one, then why would you continue to stay in it? Isn’t a war scarier than change? Apparently it isn’t. This is somewhat scary in itself. If people fear change that much then what is to stop a president from doing an FDR. Yeah there is that amendment to the Constitution, but amendments can be amended. Could you imagine four or more terms of Bush-Cheney? I don’t even want to begin to think about it.

This article was written in 1955. It is more than likely that this man lived through the terms of FDR. This is not to say that FDR was not a good president, it just means that he may have overstayed his welcome a bit. It stands to reason that the author of the article would agree with me. He probably saw many people go and vote for FDR just because he was FDR. “He was president during the war and the depression Well, the depression is over, so he must be the man for the job. Let’s keep him in.” (I’m not sure if that should be in quotes, but it is and it’s going to stay that way. I just made it up on the spot.) It’s the same thing with Bush-Cheney, except we’re not winning the war. Apparently our mission has been accomplished, but we are just visiting now.

The last question posed is if this undermines any current cultural ideas. Yes, it does, but they are the same ideas as in 1955. Change is bad. It’s apparently worse than war. Instead of acknowledging that something is bad, we’ll just pretend everything is just dandy and it’ll work itself out. These are the kinds of ideas that need to be challenged. If they aren’t then this country is doomed to repeat past mistakes. This statement has

already come to fruition. The Vietnam Conflict and the War on Terror seem to be

somewhat similar in both purpose and execution. I mean that they’re both cluster-fucks.

The sooner that we realize the error of our ways (cliché but still effective), the sooner we can begin to see things in a different light. Maybe one day voting will feel like something we should do. Right now it feels like something that we have to do. It did then and it does now.

In conclusion, get out the vote, but please…please make an informed decision. Don’t do it just because someone tells you it’s your duty.

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