Messy Business

60: (July 2024)

Democracy is a messy business. I didn’t realize this throughout my first five or so decades on this earth. As part of the baby boomer generation, I don’t think I was alone in taking for granted how fortunate we were to live most of our lives in a stable, relatively peaceful country with plenty of personal freedoms.

I am grateful for the freedoms I have enjoyed and no longer take those freedoms for granted. Over the past 20 years or so I gradually became more interested in our political system, our elected officials, and how our country interacts with the world at large. With this, I have become deeply aware that a true democracy requires engagement of a great majority of its citizens. According to the Pew Research Center, the voter turnout for the 2020 presidential election was the highest since 1900, yet just 66% of the eligible voter population participated in the vote. Maybe that’s better than what it was, but if the remaining 34% of folks who didn’t vote in 2020 decided to exercise their right to vote in November 2024, we would come closer to electing a president who is truly representative of the people, not just some of the people. (The Electoral College is a subject for another day!)

It is imperative to encourage those who don’t usually vote to step up, as there is much at stake in the elections that are upon us this fall. I am very excited to vote for Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election. I made the first political donation of my life to her campaign today and look forward to doing whatever I can to put this strong, competent, dynamic woman in office as our next president.

The United States is only capable of becoming the best version of itself when and if we all engage in the democratic process as informed citizens, (ideally drawing on a variety of news sources for information). The future of our country is only as bright as its engaged citizenry, bringing their light, energy, and ideas to the table. We cannot afford to take anything for granted. There is too much that we stand to lose. Be sure to vote!

40: (July 2004)

I began to appreciate just what it means to live in a democracy when I went to my church’s annual meeting. It was an astonishing display of varying points of view, strong personalities, impassioned pleas, and finally votes and resolutions. I am sure that it took much longer than anyone in that room wanted it to take, but eventually, we all arrived at decisions. It was nothing short of a miracle.

I left the church tired out, amazed that anyone would accept the role of chairperson, grateful for the person who did, and thoroughly astounded that the democratic process works at all. Yet it does. It is grueling, but it works, arguably better than any other process of governing. I also left the church thinking what a wonder it is that our entire country runs by democratic process. If it is exhausting for a small church to govern “by the people,” it is somewhat mind-boggling to grasp how our country accomplishes this feat. Yet it does. And I admire that.

I have to admit that I am often hoping that the democratic process will be abandoned during some of the smaller forums I am involved in, in lieu of someone just making a decision and having it done with. Perhaps it is because I know I have this inclination in me that I applaud the fact that our country goes through the pains and labors of being a democracy—that it has the determination, idealism, vision, and patience to continuously give birth to itself through this process. And somehow, the complex din of voices moves the whole thing along better than any one person could—if we all stick with it and remain invested. If we give up on it and do not use our vote, then it is no longer a true democracy, and it becomes lopsided, skewed, unbalanced. It takes all the parts to make it work.

I really wanted to leave that church meeting. I lose patience easily when there is all that back and forth haggling before the vote. But the vote counts. And the haggling is part of it. So I stick with it. And I listen to what is being said and done before participating in our country’s elections, too. If we are not all part of it, it’s not a miracle; it’s just a mistake.

60-40:

The haggling I witnessed at the aforementioned church meeting was nothing compared with what is going on now in our presidential election! But we must bear it. We must slog through it, talk about it with our family members, and discuss it with our neighbors and friends.

We can and will have different opinions and wildly different ideas. This world is highly complex; there generally aren’t simple answers or solutions to difficult ethical issues, so there will always be vastly different points of view. But we are all Americans, and as such, we can at least make an effort to understand each other and to bring some compassion to the table. Otherwise we’ll become ever more polarized and calcified in our own positions.

Meanwhile, mark your calendars; don’t forget to vote on November 5th!