Ben Facey | Local Politics

At Face Value | Change starts in your neighborhood, not in The White House

By Ben Facey 03/20/16 9:26pm

A little over two weeks ago, the mayor of my hometown of Williamsport, Pa., announced over Twitter that he would become the first mayor of a Pennsylvania town to publicly endorse Donald Trump for president. This announcement led to mixed results from the overwhelmingly Republican city, with a surprisingly large number of people attacking the mayor over this announcement.

And from my city of around 30,000 residents there now exists a Facebook page: “Williamsport Protests Trump,” with already almost 2000 likes. The citizens of Williamsport seem to be standing up to Mayor Campana, telling him that he does not speak for the people of Williamsport... except he does.

In November of last year, Mayor Campana was reelected to a third term in office, with 59 percent of the popular vote. In that election the people of Williamsport decided, en masse, that Gabe Campana does in fact have the right and duty to speak for the people of Williamsport. Enough citizens went out on Election Day to decide that he was the best person to represent our great city. Now here is where things get interesting: How many was enough?

In the election last year Campana beat opponent Emily Gale with a popular vote of 2,388 to Gale’s 1,633. In this mayoral election only 17.5 percent of the city’s 23,000 voting age adults participated in the election (for reference, 49 percent of the voting population participated in the 2012 presidential election). Almost more disturbingly, the Facebook page, which denounces Campana and his endorsement of Trump, currently has more likes than Gale had votes in the election. In fact, in the near future, the page’s likes will eclipse the votes received even by Campana.

Now I am not attempting to equate Facebook likes to votes — that would be ridiculous — but I do think that the likes, along with the voter turnout do showcase an interesting point: The majority of people honestly do not care about local politics, outside of specific situations such as this where local and national politics intersect. Without the commercials, the polls, the news takeover, the debates and the overwhelming overtake of popular culture that presidential elections have, people forget about politics and have no desire to participate.

If you want to see change in politics, and make a difference in your day to day life, then participate in local politics, because it all works bottom up. Local leaders are the people who will make decisions that affect your daily life as a citizen, they will determine your property taxes, your education and your infrastructure. They decide who plows your roads and when they do it. These things seem mundane, but they are the things that affect you and your family the most. Yes, national elections are extremely important, particularly congressional elections, but real change starts at the local level.

All over campus I see students and student groups urging other students to register to vote. This is all well and good, and I too urge all of you to participate in the political process, but these groups ask you to register as a voter in Philadelphia or Pennsylvania, not your hometown or state; I would like you to ask you to do the opposite. Yes, if you register here you will be able to vote in person for the presidential elections, but let’s be honest, most of you will only live here for a couple more years and most of you have no interest, knowledge or investment in local Philadelphia politics.

I urge you to register in your hometowns and districts, where you are familiar with the people, issues, needs and candidates; local elections where you can use your knowledge, connections and energies, to make real change for your friends and families who live there. Yes, you will probably have to vote absentee. In the national elections, yes, this will potentially lower the importance of your vote, but in local elections absentee ballots still very much matter. And you have the potential to make much more of an impact on the local level.

Local politics are not flashy, they are omnipresent, they are not always interesting, but they matter. Real change starts small, with a state representative, with a mayor, with a city council, with a member of the school board. Do not put all your eggs of change in the basket of a Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, but rather put faith, hope, energy and passion behind and with your neighbors right in your backyard.

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