Leverage your vote
Dear Editor,
Your party may not necessarily be counting on your vote. As long as the two can tolerate each other, the voter and the party will work together toward common goals. But what happens when the relationship becomes intolerable?
Without your support, your party relies on an opposite strategy -- they count on your inactivity. It is customary that Americans stay away from the polls when they are dissatisfied. In fact, there seems to be a lot of that going on these days. I agree with the old adage that this is not only a crime against yourself, it is also the punishment.
Your silence is the very reaction political entities should desire at the instant you disagree with them. We are somehow schooled to believe that by remaining silent, or by voting for an insignificant third party we are being as rebellious as a voter can be. Yet, because so many are now staying away from the polls, because we have become so predictable, the only action that ever seems to motivate a major political party is the outright mass exodus of its supporters. It is only then that the Party begins to implement measures to get back to what it once stood for. Because this seems to be true, we do neither ourselves, nor our political parties, nor our country any good by remaining silent.
Consider this for a moment -- if you choose silence as a means of dissent, your party must, in order to maintain the status quo, find one vote to replace yours or, at the very least, frustrate one of their opponent's constituents into abstaining from casting a ballot also. If instead, you threaten to cast a ballot for your party's opponent, your party must now find two votes to maintain the status quo.
Congratulations -- you have just leveraged your solitary vote! And, if you threaten to contribute cash to their opponent's campaign along with your vote, enabling them to pursue even more votes, the ground your party must cover to compensate for their readiness to part with you begins to become a formidable task.
Though this may seem a little extreme to a die-hard, yet frustrated loyal party member, let us keep things in perspective by remembering to what extremes our forefathers went in the founding of this country. To jump a party line in order to drive home a point is hardly extreme at all!
In most things silence truly is golden. In the world of dissent -- it's probably the least effective choice you can make. Want to make change? Practice using your vote for a change.
Al Dunworth
Culbertson