“I’m just not into politics. It doesn’t matter anyway.” For some, the decisions made by lawmakers are distant abstractions, but for others, those decisions come with real life obstacles that impact their safety and quality of life.
If our government has the power to make healthcare more affordable, protect reproductive freedom, strengthen the working class, and make economic opportunity more broadly available, then our say in politics cannot start and stop with every election cycle. These are not issues that can be resolved with a campaign slogan and the wavering hope that enough people will decide to participate this time around. They require us to remain politically engaged long after the ballots have been counted.
We’ve started treating politics like a consumer product for entertainment. We demand bite-sized clips that tell us what to believe and where to direct our rage, as long as we can like and share to demonstrate our concern. Sign this petition, share this post, donate $10 if you can spare it. All of these things have value, but they also further perpetuate the illusion that participation is only about completing whatever task is placed in front of us.
As citizens, we have responsibilities. We cannot demand to be educated on every issue while refusing to spend any time educating ourselves. We cannot complain that politicians only talk about the issues that generate attention while rewarding them every time we click on the latest outrage. We cannot say that political discourse is too shallow and then refuse to read anything longer than a caption or inflammatory headline.
That is why voting cannot be the beginning and end of our political participation. Voting is important, but it is also one of the easiest forms of participation because the system tells you exactly when to do it. Every few years, candidates show up asking for your vote, political parties start sending increasingly desperate emails, and your mailbox becomes a landfill of glossy campaign literature. Then Election Day passes, and we congratulate ourselves for having participated in democracy before disappearing until the next election.
Political power matters when workers organize for better wages and protections. It matters when communities fight for affordable housing and health care. It matters when voters defend access to the ballot. It matters when people organize to protect reproductive freedom or demand that elected officials take action on climate change. These are contests over who gets heard, whose interests are represented, and who has enough organized power to turn an idea into public policy.
A democratic political movement cannot simply ask people to consume its message. It has to teach people how to exercise power. If we want to build a durable political movement around economic security, individual rights, organized labor, reproductive freedom, voting rights, and democratic institutions, those values cannot exist only as planks in a party platform or talking points during election season. They must become habits of political participation.
Democracy has no offseason, and neither should the people who claim to believe in it.
Dane Dunker is the president of the Bonneville County Young Democrats.