Open Letter to Disaffected Voters,

I know you're sickened by politics. I suspect you believe the two-party system is corrupt, offering no real choice. I imagine you feel your voice doesn't count and are considering not voting at all. And as someone with a strong spiritual bent, I understand the view that the political play currently on the stage is largely irrelevant and all shall be well.

That paragraph described me at many points during my voting career. But I have always voted, and usually for the Democratic presidential nominee, even if I wasn't pleased by that choice. And this is why...

 

On the night of the 1980 election, I was in Cuernavaca, Mexico having dinner with teachers and friends of the language school I was attending. When it was announced that Ronald Reagan had won, a pall fell over the table. That's not hyperbole. This was during a time of significant unrest throughout Central America. Our nation had been supporting dictatorships there, and Ronald Reagan had made clear his intent to increase that support. My dinner mates rightly knew what a Reagan presidency would mean for their part of the world.

 

At one point during the evening, one of my teachers turned to me and asked, "But you voted for Carter, didn't you?" I cannot describe the look in his eyes when I replied that I had cast an early vote for John Anderson, a third-party candidate unknown to most outside the U.S. Shame is not a common emotion for me, but shame is what I felt then. I had voted my conscience, it is true, but it was a privileged American conscience, one that didn't take fully into account the ramifications to the rest of the world. 

 

I learned then that my vote DID matter. It mattered to my dinner companions that night. And in 2016 it mattered to my fellow citizens when it helped Clinton win the popular vote by a margin of nearly 3 million. Yes, Trump was the President, but it was without the consent of the majority.  

 

COVID is teaching us that, like it or not, we are all interconnected. And the Trump Presidency has taught us that, even if the system is rigged and politicians act out of self-interest, what a President says and how he says it matters. 

 

Please vote this year and cast that vote for leaders who speak to our better angels. And please encourage everyone you know to do the same. Thank you.

 

Leia