There are fewer than 14 days until election day.
Less than two weeks until this presidential election cycle comes to an end, not with a whimper but a bang.
Should Kamala Harris win, it will be the first time in this country’s young, precious life that a woman was chosen to lead this country.
If Donald Trump wins, it will be the first time a twice impeached ex-president who instigated a failed coup against the American government, was found to have committed rape and massive fraud in New York, and faces a slew of other charges related to election interference and illegally retaining classified documents at his Florida home would be re-elected to the presidency.
In 2016 Trump famously said: ”I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.”
Eight years later he is closer to proving that point. Incredible indeed.
Imagine if Michael Inzunza, Leticia Munguia or any of the other candidates running in the local city council election made similar remarks while standing in the middle of Third Avenue.
And yet we still have neighbors, friends, colleagues and family among us who choose not to vote. Who look at the state of the world around them, at their strained pocketbooks and their boss’s social media posts of their European vacation, at the increasing gap in healthcare between the haves and have nots and the inequality and racism built into the justice system, shrug and say “My vote doesn’t make difference,” or “It doesn’t matter, nothing changes,” or—my favorite— “All politicians are corrupt.”
It’s hard to convince someone —who watches their candidate or issue fail at the ballot box, or doesn’t see the massive change they expected by voting for or against an issue materialize immediately—that voting matters. That their vote means something.
In its simplest form voting is an expression of one’s beliefs and an opportunity to make change based on those values. It is one of the few times when one’s opinion can result in direct action.
Voting matters as much as you matter.
How much do you matter?
