Why voting matters

(News4usonline) – What we learned about the 2022 midterm elections is that your vote matters. It does not matter if you’re Team Blue or Team Red or somewhere placed in the middle. This is what democracy is all about. 

Voting is a matter of privilege that we all as American citizens should feel obligated to participate in. Some of us has taken that privilege for granted, balking at the qualifications of those running for an elected seat. The right to vote is as Democratic as the American Dream itself.

If you want to see a better place for your children, your family and yourself, it starts with you. It doesn’t start with your momma or your daddy. If are legally able to sign up for the military draft, you are able to get up off your duff and head to the polls to vote. Nobody is going to twist your arm to go and vote. 

However, it is perhaps the most patriotic thing you can do. When you vote, you show enough pride in your country that you want to see changes made for you and your family. If you’re not happy with those currently seated in elected position, do what you’re supposed to do and vote. 

The turnout for the 2022 midterm elections is not too shocking that it is darn near split down the middle.Our ideology, both individually and as Americans, differ from one another. It is pretty much the way how we flex our spiritual or non-spiritual life through the religion we practice. It is by choice. That is the most wonderful thing about voting and the right to vote. 

It’s all a choice. The pair of jeans you decide to wear is a choice. The restaurant you want to dine at is a choice. How you worship and who you worship is also a choice. Voting comes in as the same privilege. The great thing about democracy is that it not reliant on wishful thinking and birds and the bees imagination. 

Democracy works best when there is participation. Voting is part of that process. As we filter through the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections, there are a couple of quick takeaways we can draw from. Passion. 

Whether people were drawn to vote because of a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion or folks showing up at the polls due to the slip sliding rock of the nation’s economic hold or being driven by a call for officials to address societal issues such as crime and homlessness, the passion on both sides of the aisle have been felt. 

People were driven to come out to the polls to vote because of what they believe in. Some people may have been driven because they do not believe in abortion and are pro-life. Of course, you are going to have those who do believe in the woman’s right to choose. Some people are not too happy with the state of the country that America finds itself in, rattled from climate change to gun violence.

Whatever your beef is in wanting to change things, the right to vote is always the best tool to utilize as an American citizen. The other takeaway from the midterm elections is control. By participating in the voting process you have officially taken ownership of your life and what kind of society you’d like to live in. 

For the Black community, this is an essential point to take to heart. Scores of people have laid down their lives for the opportunity for others to take up the right to vote. Black people have risen from the chattel of the abomination of the wicked slave trade to enduring the horrors of Jim Crow laws and segregation. 

We must never forget that we were not even considered to be a whole human being, let alone having the opportunity to live out the American Dream of true freedom. Voting exercised is a form of freedom. Our ancestors did not die in vain for us not to engage ourselves in a very basic and civic responsibility, and that is to vote. 

All those marches, sit-ins and protests, centered on achieving equality for Black people, including having the right to vote. The right to vote is not like playing a game of checkers. The right to vote is our civic pride. It is the heartbeat of our patriotism. Democrat. Republican. Independent. Green Party. Libertarian.

We’re all the same in one collective breath. At the end of the day, we’re Americans. The right to vote is more about your values and your belief system and not about your party affiliation. Why do we vote? We vote for change. We vote for the same. Either way, it’s our choice. And that’s a beautiful thing.