Election Fatigue

This election cycle I have become increasingly frustrated with posts encouraging people to vote. They seem to start from a point that people are too lazy, too busy, or too apathetic to care about who governs them. I especially dislike the shame posts that say that there are people dying for their right to vote and that we owe it to them to vote. There's a huge part of this conversation about voter turnout and voting rights that is consistently left out, and the shame isn't helping.
 
I want to preface what I write next with the following:

• My family has had passionate political conversations for as long as I can remember.
• I have been surrounded by supporters of each political party, and people that reject the electoral process as being fair, just or truly democratic for most of my life.
• I became actively interested in electoral politics when I was 11.
• I have put a ballot in a box in every federal election since I turned 18.
• I have never voted for a candidate that truly represented my values. 
• I have scratched my ballot on more than one occasion.

Elections are often painted in pictures of liberal vs. conservative, social good vs. social harm, one candidate's stance on a wedge issue vs. their opponent's stance. True, there are real ideological differences between parties and their candidates. There are certainly policies that will be put into effect by one party or another that will do harm or good, and in some cases drastically so. But, what goes unchallenged on all sides during every election cycle is what would really make a difference: the macro economics. It is pervasive, unquestioned, and is never an election issue. Call it neoliberalism, unfettered capitalism, economic imperialism or free market ideology, it's all the same.

People not voting isn't an expression of disinterest in the world around them, or a lack of respect for people who fought for the right to vote. Sure, sometimes it is. More often, it's a statement that even if you pick the best of the worst, you still end up voting for someone who believes that this economic system is the only way, that it's good. There are reasons that voter turnout has declined while social movements such as Idle No More and Occupy have increased. People who don't vote, in my experience, believe there is a better way and are, on a day-to-day basis, fighting for that better world. For them, voting changes nothing; not voting is an expression of non-consent for a system of governance they don't believe in. We need to respect this decision, talk about it, and stop coercing and shaming people to participate in something that feels wrong to them.

A few thoughts to leave you with:

• A ruling power that asks for consent and yet cannot give voice to the aspirations of those in whose name it rules will not survive indefinitely.
• A society based in flawed universal values has achievements that only survive one generation and often leaves succeeding generations to cope with unintended consequences of its implementation. 
• We may still fight wars on the premise of settling ideological conflicts, but at the apex of the emerging global class structure is a transnational managerial class, having its own ideology, strategy and institutions of action. It is both a class in itself and for itself. It doesn't include most of us.
• The myth of nationhood, masked by ideology, perpetuates nationalism, where specific identifiers are used to create exclusive and homogeneous conceptions of national traditions. Constructions of the nation are potent sites of control and domination within modern society. 
• We need to go beyond determining that power exits and where, and encourage thought that extends beyond short-term and immediate realities to tackle long-term dreams and goals to ensure that society develops in a way that is advantageous for all following generations.