You have the power.
If nothing else, the last few weeks should have opened everyone’s eyes to that simple yet important fact.
Voters still have the power.
Even in Alabama, where lawmakers over the years have done everything imaginable to put up impediments to voting and build in advantages for incumbents to stay in office, voters still have the power.
That’s why a five-term mayor in Bessemer is out of office today. And why a four-term city councilwoman in Huntsville came within a few hundred votes of losing to a first-time candidate. And why two sitting state senators in Huntsville are upside down in recent polling. And why campaigns from one end of this state to the other are busy rewriting ads and reworking campaign websites.
Because a whole bunch of people stopped worrying about party politics and instead got pissed off.
Over data centers. Over Flock cameras. Over high prices. Over low pay. Over a whole bunch of stuff that’s been building for years.
Honestly, I feel like I’m living in a dream world. In a world where all of a sudden this thing that I’ve always dreamed of happening is actually occurring. And I just hope to God it continues, starts a trend and that no one ever goes back.
And no, it does not have a thing to do with partisan politics.
I mean, does it give me joy that some of the people suffering in this age of voter engagement are lazy, do-nothing, hyperbolic, ignorant conservative politicians who’ve spent a lifetime sucking up taxpayer money while doing little to help anyone? Oh, you bet.
But that’s simply a byproduct of the world I hoped for.
Because while I am a bleeding-heart liberal with an odd affection for the military and small businesses (hey, stop trying to put everyone into a simple box), I’ve never truly wanted everyone to vote like me. I’ve only wanted people to vote for themselves. To get engaged in the issues. To study the candidates. To force politicians to listen to them. To participate in our representative system of government the way we were meant to participate.
Basically, I wanted you to stop being sucked in by BS fearmongering and hot-button culture war issues and focus on the things that actually keep you up at night, that generate most of the hard talks between you and your spouse, that truly affect your happiness and peace. Then I wanted you to identify candidates who truly had a plan to address those issues in a way that satisfied you.
For example, if you wanted to vote for, say, Tommy Tuberville over Doug Jones, I wanted you to do it because, after studying the candidates, you found that Tuberville’s detailed plans for addressing the things that most concern you were more appealing than Jones’ answers to those issues, and not because Tuberville used the word “woke” a lot or talked about furry airline pilots.
On the reverse side of that, I want you to vote for Jones because you’ve listened to his detailed plans for addressing the issues you care about, and not because he’s made overly broad promises that he’ll never be able to fulfill or merely because he’s running as a Democrat.
That’s it.
And much to my delight, that’s pretty much what’s happening right now.
Yes, much of it is being driven by the unexpected outrage over data centers and Flock cameras, but those issues are opening a lot of people’s eyes to the bigger problems within our government. The problem of elected officials not really giving a damn about what you want. The problem of government officials making sweetheart deals (that often benefit themselves in some way) at the expense of the community they’re supposed to serve and for the benefit of wealthy companies.
The problem of nondisclosure agreements. The problem of secret government contracts. The problem of government overreach in general. The problem of the erosion of our rights. The problem of the little guy actually having no voice in our government. The problem of a two-tiered government system that ignores the common working man and gives great deference to the wealthy and powerful.
Over the last year, this new voter engagement has turned things upside down on the elites.
Just think about all of the powerful people and corporations that you’ve sent scrambling back to the drawing board to come up with new plans and better ideas. Think about the candidates and sitting lawmakers who you’ve scared to absolute death because they refused to listen to you.
That’s how our government is supposed to work. That’s the power of paying attention and voting for yourself.
And dammit, keep it up.
