So, last Tuesday I was super pumped to vote - I missed the last election..something about me being too lazy to get myself registered (it takes a 3 minute bike ride to the city office buildings, filling out a half sheet of paper). Anyways, I decided that wouldn't be my problem this year, and so I did it. And on Tuesday, I was seriously way more excited than I should have been. Anyways, some of my peers noticed my excitement and inquired as to why. I told them I was excited to vote, and asked if they were going to. The answer was no. Not just from one person, but, seemingly, from everyone I talked to about it.
I had two classes that day - fairly good sized, and in the classes, I asked for a show of hands (for my own curiosity's sake) who would be voting. In the first class, NOBODY raised their hand (including the professor), and in the second class, myself, one other student and the professor. The apathy was infuriating. I wondered if this was a problem all across campus - so I kept talking about it for days... and for days, I didn't find anyone that I knew that voted. Here we are, at war time, with a president that has one of the lowest approval ratings in history, economy on the verge of a serious chasm, issue after issue that are potentially life changing, and, at least on my campus, the population was basically too lazy, or too apathetic to care about what went on. And this is BYU - I mean, students should have been rallying for Romney (you know that's who the majority of them would have voted for) but they were more interested in...I don't know, all the other wonderful things that can occupy a Tuesday evening at a major university.
I posted on this at my personal blog a few months ago - I don't want to retype it, but here it is. At the time, I was posting mostly on the war, and on global warming, but the same thing applies to the elections. I don't care if people think it's a done deal, or not, at least we could bat an eye. Did anyone notice something similar in your own respective schools/homes/work? Grumble-grumble...Peace - Rick
Apathy...
Posted by Anonymous on 2/09/2008
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4 comments:
Rick - I think that there are a few factors that may have contributed to what you witnessed. I'll start with the primary reason I saw here at Michigan: Most of the students aren't tied to the local political scene and only care about (if they care) what goes on at "home". Many people I talked to here are registered to vote in their parents' state, but not here.
Another issue that I'd raise is that you are in Utah. Did you see the result? You'd have to be pretty blasted interested in voting to "waste" the time and effort making a 90% to 10% lopsidded victory even more lopsidded. There was no real reason for most of the people there to vote (most being Romney supporters as you conceed). So I think that your "worldview" in this case is really skewed.
Those are my thoughts...
Rick, all the non-students I know voted. All the students I attend class with in San Francisco didn't. Maybe its something about the student mindset of not really being in the "real" world yet? I think unless a campus has a major political movement organized it is just easier for students to use term papers, quizzes, hw assignments, etc as an excuse to not stand in line for 10 minutes.
Maybe so - I didn't take a very good sample, but I heard a lot of people more excited about voting this time. Well, I should say a lot of liberals. Romney was still in the race when we had our primary here in AZ, and I think conservatives here particularly might have had a vested interest one way or the other - because Romney is LDS and McCain is our Senator so I think people wanted to be sure and throw their lot in either way.
And Democrats are pretty jazzed because a) Obama is an exciting candidate for a lot of people, and it feels "cool" to vote for him, for better or for worse, and b) either way you slice it the Democratic nominee will be historic. A woman or a Black man! I'm really excited about that, leaving everything else behind. I think people are happy to be able to be a part of that moment.
I think the whole college student away from home mentality is an excellent point, though. It's just a shame. Young people (myself included) still have a lot to learn but they have a lot to contribute too, a lot of energy.
Just for accuracy sake and impartiallity, if your gonna mention Bushes approval rating being one of the lowest in history, you gotta mention that congresses approval rating is THE lowest in history.
That aside, I stood in line for an hour to vote here in our desert, and everyone I knew was voting. According to reports most states had record turn-outs.
I agree with joel that being in Utah had a lot to do with it.
But also another question to be answered is how many people care about, or don't, politcal news and debate. There is probably just as much aversion to politics as there is to religion. I would be interested to know what percentage of people could name the house speaker or senate majority leader. I a saying that we are unique in our passion, though I would agree to an opinion of escalating political interest.
Question to Wizzle. You mentioned if a democrat gets elected it will be historic, and I do think the Democrat candidates have a better chance depending on McCains running mate, but if they don't win, do you think accusations of intolerance will be thrown?
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