When It’s Our Turn

By: Moira Kellaher

         Ask any American who’s been paying attention for the past year, and they’ll likely agree that the 2016 presidential race is a hot mess. For starters, a massive number of voters are unsatisfied with the candidates themselves, and according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, about half of all people who plan to vote say they are not voting for a candidate they like as much as they are voting against a candidate they dislike. Additionally, many voters are frustrated with the unbelievable mudslinging by the candidates and their supporters that has characterized this election. Jokes and rants on social media have made it difficult to focus on the real issues.

      Although this is an editorial, I’m not going to tell anyone which candidate to support. I’m not even going to tell you whom I would vote for if I was one year, eight months, and 12 days older and allowed to go to the polls. That’s not the purpose of this piece. What I am going to do is tell you, my fellow future voters, what we can do now to avoid this when it’s our turn to vote. We may think that we have years before we need to worry about the election process, but the truth is that we need to start thinking now about how we can improve the process. We must make ourselves knowledgeable about the issues that face the nation, learn to be civil with each other even when we disagree, and begin to take part in our government. By working on these things now, our generation can help make future elections much less frustrating.

      The first step we need to take is to educate ourselves on the issues facing the nation. Topics like the Black Lives Matter movement, Affordable Health Care, and our policy on Syrian refugees are relevant now and will still be around in one form or another in a few years, when we are going to the polls. Understanding issues like these—and how candidates plan to handle them—is a necessity. Be sure to get your information from objective and reliable sources, not biased news channels or funny tweets. It’s important to investigate these issues and keep up with current events so that we are well-informed when it’s our turn to vote.

      Another step we need to take, and one of the more difficult ones, is to be civil with each other when talking about politics. Somehow, our country has become so polarized that we’ve forgotten an important point: we’re all Americans, and we need to work together to solve the problems facing our country. We should learn to listen with an open mind when debating the issues and to express our views in a respectful way. Don’t call names, refuse to listen, or resort to physical violence or threats. We can do better than that when it’s our turn to vote.

      A third challenge that young people must take on is to get involved in the political process in whatever ways we can. For now, that might just mean forming our own political views, reminding our parents to vote, and writing to our representatives to let them know what we think. But in the future, we might consider volunteering with a candidate’s campaign or even running for political office ourselves. These are all ways that we can voice our concerns and beliefs and ensure that the candidates we vote for are people we’d be willing to stand behind.

      There may be little that high school students can do about Election 2016 besides hope for the best and brace ourselves for impact if the candidate we support fails to win. We can, however, avoid a repetition of this the next time around. By educating ourselves on the issues, remaining civil, and getting involved in politics, we can make the process less frustrating when it’s our turn to vote.