It was raining steadily as I greeted voters outside my polling place Tuesday morning. A stream of cars arrived before 9 a.m. Many voters had waited to vote on Election Day for the first time in years, and for the first time in years more people voted there on Election Day than voted early. Even more stunning was watching neighborhood people walking from up and down the block to vote. In the rain.
Voter turnout there was 62%. In a primary.
A younger man I thanked for coming to vote in such weather said, “You got to. It’s a civic duty.”
Civic duty. How quaint.
A neighbor called on Thursday to ask about being a poll worker for runoff elections here on May 12. She has computers skill, a flexible work schedule, and had served during early voting and the Super Tuesday primary. Her whole life she’d seen retirees working there giving back to the community. Now she looks in the mirror and sees one of them.
It’s hard to pry people out of those 14-hour jobs. They get paid (marginally) for their work, yes, but that’s not why they keep doing it — sometimes beyond their ability to administer the technology. They have a deep connection to the community and to the democratic process. And they feel a sense of patriotic duty.
There were six peopIe working my little precinct on March 3. There are 80 precincts in Buncombe County. In North Carolina there are 2,670 precincts spread among 100 counties, plus the staffs and county boards in each and the state Board of Elections team in the capitol. That’s an army division mobilized for one day to make democracy possible — in one state of which there are 50. Plus the territories and the District of Columbia. And 3,142 counties and county equivalents in the 50 states.
You don’t have to do the math. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has done it for you. “During the 2016 elections,” the EAC website reports, “local election officials operated 116,990 polling places, including 8,616 early voting locations, across the country. These polling sites were operated by 917,694 poll workers.” That’s about 75% the size of the U.S. Army in 2016 mobilized for a single day, yet invisible to the typical voter. They see the same handful of retirees each election day and give no thought to the massive logistical effort behind them.
A friend assembled this edgier commentary on civic duty from a Thursday tweet thread by @Stonekettle:
Look here, I get that some of you are disappointed. I would be too. In fact, I am, because the candidate that I happen to prefer isn’t doing very well. And frankly, I’m not huge fan of the current frontrunner. But you know what I’m REALLY not a fan of? Self harm.
I have no intention of lopping off my own nose if the Democrats don’t pick the candidate I want. Yes, of COURSE I’m going to be irritated that I have to vote for another old white guy solely because he’s better than the shitty old white guy currently fucking up the country.
But I’m going to do it. But it’s my duty as a citizen. I’m going to do it because I care more about other people than I do about my own personal desires.
See, here’s the thing: Me? *I* could pass. That’s right. I could. I could pass. It would be easy.
I could pass. I’m white. I’m male. I’m straight. I’m a veteran. I don’t have to put a MAGA sign in my front yard or go to Trump rallies and shout Seig Heil with the rest of them. I could just be … me. I could pass. No one would know.
I could easily benefit from Donald Trump. I mean, I’m not going to need an abortion, they’re not putting limits on my civil rights or my sex organs. It’s not me being shot down in the streets because some amped-up, militarized cop thought I had a gun or bag of candy…
Trump isn’t going to deport me or my family. America isn’t dropping bombs on my religion. When Republicans finally succeed is taking away healthcare from most of America again, it isn’t going to be me who dies from my pre-existing condition, I’m covered…
These pinch-faced assholes aren’t coming for my marriage or the person I love, my gender identity and sexual orientation are the social acceptable norms of fascism. When they get around to proclaiming the Master Race, I’m gonna ace the membership exam, genetically speaking.
And when they start shoveling bodies into the ovens, so long as I keep my mouth shut and give an enthusiastic salute when Big Orange Leader’s motorcade rolls past in the annual Make America Great Again Day parade, I’m probably gonna be good.
I could do like this guy, my correspondent, and throw in with Trump if my candidate isn’t the one. Screw ’em. Screw voting blue no matter who and screw you. Why not? Sure. I mean, really why not? Why the hell not. Give up. There’s nothing in “The Resistance” for me.
I could pass. IF I didn’t give a damn about anybody else. I could pass, if I didn’t care about my friends, my family, my neighbors, the country, the world, the future, or YOU dear reader.
I could pass. If I was a shitty, selfish, spoiled, rotten little brat throwing a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store instead of a citizen of the United States of America, I could that.
I could pass. If I wanted to cut off my own goddamned nose to spite the rest of you. But I am NOT that guy. And I do give a damn about the future.
You’re an American, not a some goddamn Nazi stooge, and it is your responsibility as a citizen of The Republic to put your disappointment — no matter how bitter — aside and DO YOUR DUTY.
You have an obligation to your fellows, to those who are suffering now and who will suffer in the future under the bootheel of oppression. That is your job, Citizen. And it’s time you got after it.
Anyone can be a patriot when it’s easy. Anyone can be a hero when the stormtroopers aren’t coming for them. Anyone can be “The Resistance” when their candidate is on top. But REAL character is defined by what you do in the depths of bitter despair.
If disappointment causes you to cede the moral high ground to oppression and throw in with fascists, then you never held it in the first place. If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen.
Nearly a million neighbors will be waiting at polling places to welcome you.
[h/t N.A.]
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