Alessandro van den Brink | Just a crush

Small Talk | We should care this much about politics all the time

By Alessandro van den Brink 09/27/16 10:50pm

I’d wager that more than half of the Penn student body either watched the presidential debate on Monday or at least kept track of it somehow. Taking into account the fact that more than 100 million people were estimated to have watched the spectacle, it’s also probably fair to say that the American populace is interested in politics at this very moment.

Political scientists will try to debate endlessly why the candidates keep breaking viewership records, but a simplistic answer would be that both candidates have massive name recognition. This is what happens when you get a face-off between a billionaire businessman/reality star and one of the most prominent politicians of the past 25 years. But at the end of the day, we’ve overstated the impact of who wins to a ridiculous degree.

We make the president’s office seem like the most important governmental position, but if Congress remains gridlocked, many of the promises the candidates tout will be nearly unattainable. As of Sept. 22, statistics blog FiveThirtyEight has predicted that Democrats have a 59 percent chance of reclaiming the Senate, meaning that even if the Republican nominee wins in November, he may not be able to pass much of his platform. Republicans have a 247 to 188 lead in the House as well, so even if the Democratic presidential nominee won along with the Democrats in the Senate, Republicans would still likely have an outlet to block Democratic legislation.

What actually makes a difference are our local elected officials, whom we often take for granted due to the fact that their roles are just not as glamorous. If you think the liquor taxes are way too high or that marijuana should be legal in Pennsylvania, the two presidential nominees can’t help you. For these changes to occur, we need to vote for governors, state representatives and even mayors and city councilmen. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution grants pretty extensive reserved powers to local governments, such as the ability to regulate intrastate commerce and establish public school systems. This means if we can hold our local governments more accountable, there’s a greater likelihood that we’ll see policies more indicative of what we really want.

The main way to hold these local politicians accountable is through the power of voting. Elected officials are essentially subservient to voters, so when we threaten not to vote for them unless they pass certain legislation, the power immediately shifts to the common people. The reality is, though, that we don’t take great interest in politicians running for these less notable positions and as a result we waste our bargaining power.

Almost all Penn students can recite rich biographies of the two presidential candidates, but the amount that can even name the mayor of Philadelphia is most likely nothing more than a fraction of the school. Many Americans will end up voting for candidates in their respective party, but these candidates don’t always care about the same issues as the majority of the constituents in their party might value. We’ll only know what we get if we research our options properly.

As I mentioned in a column last year, the 2014 midterm elections had a voter turnout of just 36 percent of eligible voters — the lowest since 1942 — proving that our political civic duties are starting to slip. This is especially true when we look at the weak excuses many citizens had for not voting. In a poll from 2014, 28 percent of respondents said they were too busy to vote on Election Day, while 16 percent said they were not interested and 8 percent claimed they forgot to vote. If these citizens were generally more interested in politics, they’d almost certainly be able to overcome these obstacles and vote. This suggests that a general lack in basic political interest and engagement has made us less likely to actively seek the change we desire.

Therefore, I’d argue that when we find ourselves frustrated with the political system (as we do in seemingly every election), instead of railing against the establishment, the media and various interest groups like the NRA, we can instead look inwards and take some of the responsibility. Every couple of years we seem to remember how dissatisfied we are with how government works but unless we can sustain these passions more frequently, we won’t be able to see the policies that we think can make our lives better.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.