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Citizen Voices is a blog about election politics, written by people like you. Six San Diegans give their personal take on the issues, candidates and propositions.
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Sporting the Red, White and Blue Beads
This week's unique convergence of the California primary with Mardi Gras has me pondering the attitude in the United States toward elections and election outcomes.
In their appearance on KPBS These Days on Monday, Citizen Voices bloggers Trina Boice and Chris McConnell both discussed polarization in American politics. They talked red states and blue states and purple voters.
While I agree that the polarization is unfortunate and a bit unseemly, sometimes we take our problems a bit too seriously. To borrow and adapt a line from the film Dogma, "I have issues with anyone who treats democracy as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your freedom; you mourn it."
The Dec. 27, 2007 elections in Kenya led to weeks of violence and estimates reported in the New York Times of 1000 dead and 300,000 homeless.
During the Bolivian Presidential elections in 1993, where I observed the polling while assigned to the American Embassy, the public was trusted so little to responsibly handle electoral results that on election day alcohol was banned, unapproved vehicles kept off the roads, and in-county airline travel was suspended.
Yet in the United States, even in a hotly contested and fiercely partisan election such as the 2000 Bush / Gore contest, there is no bloodshed. Despite lingering commentary from partisans about a stolen election or the importance of the Supreme Court's vote, Gore did not run off and set up a government in exile, or try to run a shadow government from his compound in Tennessee. Likewise, Bush did not have the four dissenting justices "reeducated" and mobs did not burn Florida election officials out of their homes.
So after a significant percentage of the people vote on Tuesday, Feb. 5, they will be trusted to go about their business and roving mobs hunting down opposition officials with torches and pitchforks are extremely unlikely.
Our freedom, signified by the debates, discussions and elections about the future of this country, is to be celebrated not mourned. Even when the "wrong" people win, the great experiment is proven a success. Successes need to be celebrated, and this brings us full-circle back to the 2008 convergence of election day and Mardi Gras. Dig out the red, white and blue beads and have yourself a no-holds barred election day.
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this post had me thinking about the joy/elation expressed by the Iraqis upon their first vote - all that blue ink and all those smiles (a moment sadly co-opted by our President to bolster the dismal state of the War. )
I think the surging voter turn out in our country is not unrelated to the state of elections around the world. We so proudly send advisors around the world to help assist and monitor democratic elections. But after 2000 it was clear that we were not watching the foxes in our own henhouse. The best way to honor our troops fighting and dying elswhere is a raised consciousness and the excercising of the right to vote. The lack of a democratic tradition can lead to violence at the polls - but so can the erosion of a democratic tradition.
Agreed, but not just the democratic tradition. Lots of traditions have lost their original purposes, and lots of new systems get it right pretty quickly. Look at post-wall Eastern Europe. I think the important issue is that people believe their vote actually means something. As long as,and wherever, that belief persists, the system seems to work.
Sporting my little sticker helped generate a huge wave of interest in my elementary school classroom. My students noticed the red, white and blue right away and, of course, wanted to know the details of the day’s important decision, (Whoja vote for?)
I deflected of course.
I then pointed to why this election is generating such high interest. My smartest and most clever girl chimmed in with, “Because its Mardi Gras! You voted because you wanted the beads!” She may be on to something!