Maybe you've seen me write about 'voting against your interest' or talk about people's 'interest' when it comes to politics. I realized today that some of my readers might not understand what I mean when I use 'interest' this way. So today's article is about probably the most important topic I could bring up prior to an election: Voting with your interest – what it means, and how to do it.
If you go to dictionary.com, you'll find that the word 'interest' has at least 15 definitions that range across a wide variety of subjects and professions. This list is hardly exhaustive, and in context of what we will be talking about briefly today, I will be using the following definition:
Interest – The state of being affected by a law, political policy, or party platform that directly contributes to the advantage and/or profit of the subject.
In short, your political interest is how the decisions of a politician or party furthers the things that matter to you. How is does your family benefit from a politician's choices? How does your chosen politician further and improve your interests and therefore your life and how does the alternative take the country in a direction that potentially either works against your interests or does nothing to further them at all.
The reason I bring this up is because voters have been coached over the last decade or so to stop asking questions about their party and how that party serves them, and instead to give the party leaders or pundits their faith. That faith manifests as an unshakable belief that the speaker tells the truth, is on their side, and that anyone who says otherwise is the enemy. The result is that the voter doesn't really consider how how the party or pundit lines with with their interests.
Lets be realistic. If you think about it, your interests have not remained the same in the last year, much less the last five or ten. In my own life, I've gone from being a student to a professional at the bottom end of the ladder on up to the top. I've gone from executive management to long time unemployment and from single to married. All of these things affect my interests: What I want and value today is different from what I wanted and valued when I was in my twenties.
Political parties are no different. The Democrats are far far more conservative today than they were twenty years ago. The Republicans, as we've discussed, are fragmented into a thousand shards of what it means to be conservative and are scrambling to look cohesive while they put up candidates that range from the typical to the bizarre.
So when's the last time you really did some digging to fiure out who stands for your interests? Be honest. If I asked you today why you vote Republican, could you answer me using your particular needs and values as they stand today instead of just quoting me talking points? Could you do it without slamming the other side as if somehow the fact that the Democrats aren't Republicans is a good enough reason to look for the elephant on the ticket?
The truth is that most people can't explain why they vote with a certain party. They always have, their parents have, their religious community is all one party or another, or they latch onto some sensational issue that somehow is supposed to make up for having no clue how the current candidate thinks or what they believe.
Example:
Voter : I'm against abortion.
Me: Okay, well, your candidate hasn't ever done anything for or against abortion, but voted for the law that shipped your husband's job to China, filibustered the bill that would have provided money for your son's struggling business during hard times, and cut your daughter's education funding to the point where she has to seek a private college loan at nearly twice the interest rate.
Voter: But I'm against abortion. The Republicans are against abortion.
Me: Yes, they are, but that interest hasn't come up and likely won't during this election cycle. What about the rest?
Voter: Abortion is evil, and I stand with the moral group that believes that.
This might sound absurd written out, but it's not atypical. Voters have a tendency to latch on to an issue they can paint into black and white and then use that to justify any support of any candidate who does anything whether or not it serves the voter's interest at all.
The solution here starts by getting voters to think about what is actually important to them. Now I can't isolate what my readers might think is their critical issues; That's something each reader needs to do for themselves. Instead, I'm going to list a series of distractions that you should NOT be swayed by when picking your candidate.
Abstracts
I believe in small government.
I believe in education.
I believe in a strong military.
I believe we're a Christian nation.
I believe in cutting taxes
These kinds of general abstracts have no grounding in your day to day life. 'Small Government™ does not improve your life or harm it. It is a theory of politics that, if followed, should lead to less interference by government agencies and officials in concrete matters such as your taxes, hiring practices, home life, etc. But by itself, 'Small Government' is meaningless. Democrats invest in expansive programs of societal engineering on the domestic front while Republicans pour billions into the military and into business contracts with large corporations that act like government agencies by proxy. Which one is 'Small'? If you can tell, please comment, because I certainly can't.
Abstractions do not speak to your interests in the immediate future. Do not let them become the source of justification for your vote.
Hot Button Issues
Lower Manhattan Mosque
Sharia used as law for courts.
Freedom Fries
The President is really a Cactus
Gay Marriage
Angry people vote. Frightened people vote. This is a trick both parties know. Now, if you think about the decisions you've made in your life and which ones you really look back on and either marvel that they worked at all or wish you could change, the are almost always the ones that happened while you were angry or afraid. When we are responding to fight or flight, we don't use good judgment – we use immediate judgment: We do what we think we have to at that moment.
If the issue on the news is not affecting your life TODAY – ignore it when you vote. Don't succumb to the temptation let one issue that has your back up define who you will put into command of portions of your future for YEARS. If you think back, very few issues you were outraged about a year ago matter quite so much to you today. Be smart. Keep the sensational issues to the television and the water cooler.
Peer Pressure/Habits
“But I always vote Democrat”
“Glen Beck said I should.”
“Rachel Maddow hates Republicans”
“God loves Republican Voters”
Look. The parties themselves have changed. More importantly, the individual candidates have a tremendous impact on how the specific party platform will (or won't) be followed. Democrats in the last 2 years have showed perfectly well that some of their number are more Republican than the candidates or members of congress who actually ran on that party's ticket. Don't vote ticket just because you always have or someone told you to. Know WHO you are voting ofr and WHAT they will do for YOU. Not just generally, but specifically in the next few years.
It won't be the end of the world if you vote for the 'other' side during an election. America hasn't fallen into chaos and anarchy because Bill Clinton took over from Bush, nor did the the rise of Ronald Reagan spell the end of liberal politics. Be willing to look at the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate and vote for the one that makes sense for RIGHT NOW. Remember, you can change your mind in the next election and involve yourself later to amend anything that turns out not be as helpful as you like.
I'm going long. The point here is that we have google and wikipedia and a host of other resources available so you can, with minimal effort, know who is asking for your vote and use that vote intelligently. Don't give it to someone else by blanket voting a party or deciding Oprah knows best and going with her endorsed candidate. Do you own research. Wrap both your hands around your vote and reclaim it for YOU and YOUR family.
The choice in November is going to be between a wide variety of Democrats who hold a lot of diverse beliefs on politics and a even wider diversity of Republicans whose stances on issues are sometimes so different as to make their similar party affiliation seem bizarre.
Pick the person that will help you TODAY. Everything else – party, politics, and pundits – is secondary.
If you go to dictionary.com, you'll find that the word 'interest' has at least 15 definitions that range across a wide variety of subjects and professions. This list is hardly exhaustive, and in context of what we will be talking about briefly today, I will be using the following definition:
Interest – The state of being affected by a law, political policy, or party platform that directly contributes to the advantage and/or profit of the subject.
In short, your political interest is how the decisions of a politician or party furthers the things that matter to you. How is does your family benefit from a politician's choices? How does your chosen politician further and improve your interests and therefore your life and how does the alternative take the country in a direction that potentially either works against your interests or does nothing to further them at all.
The reason I bring this up is because voters have been coached over the last decade or so to stop asking questions about their party and how that party serves them, and instead to give the party leaders or pundits their faith. That faith manifests as an unshakable belief that the speaker tells the truth, is on their side, and that anyone who says otherwise is the enemy. The result is that the voter doesn't really consider how how the party or pundit lines with with their interests.
Lets be realistic. If you think about it, your interests have not remained the same in the last year, much less the last five or ten. In my own life, I've gone from being a student to a professional at the bottom end of the ladder on up to the top. I've gone from executive management to long time unemployment and from single to married. All of these things affect my interests: What I want and value today is different from what I wanted and valued when I was in my twenties.
Political parties are no different. The Democrats are far far more conservative today than they were twenty years ago. The Republicans, as we've discussed, are fragmented into a thousand shards of what it means to be conservative and are scrambling to look cohesive while they put up candidates that range from the typical to the bizarre.
So when's the last time you really did some digging to fiure out who stands for your interests? Be honest. If I asked you today why you vote Republican, could you answer me using your particular needs and values as they stand today instead of just quoting me talking points? Could you do it without slamming the other side as if somehow the fact that the Democrats aren't Republicans is a good enough reason to look for the elephant on the ticket?
The truth is that most people can't explain why they vote with a certain party. They always have, their parents have, their religious community is all one party or another, or they latch onto some sensational issue that somehow is supposed to make up for having no clue how the current candidate thinks or what they believe.
Example:
Voter : I'm against abortion.
Me: Okay, well, your candidate hasn't ever done anything for or against abortion, but voted for the law that shipped your husband's job to China, filibustered the bill that would have provided money for your son's struggling business during hard times, and cut your daughter's education funding to the point where she has to seek a private college loan at nearly twice the interest rate.
Voter: But I'm against abortion. The Republicans are against abortion.
Me: Yes, they are, but that interest hasn't come up and likely won't during this election cycle. What about the rest?
Voter: Abortion is evil, and I stand with the moral group that believes that.
This might sound absurd written out, but it's not atypical. Voters have a tendency to latch on to an issue they can paint into black and white and then use that to justify any support of any candidate who does anything whether or not it serves the voter's interest at all.
The solution here starts by getting voters to think about what is actually important to them. Now I can't isolate what my readers might think is their critical issues; That's something each reader needs to do for themselves. Instead, I'm going to list a series of distractions that you should NOT be swayed by when picking your candidate.
Abstracts
I believe in small government.
I believe in education.
I believe in a strong military.
I believe we're a Christian nation.
I believe in cutting taxes
These kinds of general abstracts have no grounding in your day to day life. 'Small Government™ does not improve your life or harm it. It is a theory of politics that, if followed, should lead to less interference by government agencies and officials in concrete matters such as your taxes, hiring practices, home life, etc. But by itself, 'Small Government' is meaningless. Democrats invest in expansive programs of societal engineering on the domestic front while Republicans pour billions into the military and into business contracts with large corporations that act like government agencies by proxy. Which one is 'Small'? If you can tell, please comment, because I certainly can't.
Abstractions do not speak to your interests in the immediate future. Do not let them become the source of justification for your vote.
Hot Button Issues
Lower Manhattan Mosque
Sharia used as law for courts.
Freedom Fries
The President is really a Cactus
Gay Marriage
Angry people vote. Frightened people vote. This is a trick both parties know. Now, if you think about the decisions you've made in your life and which ones you really look back on and either marvel that they worked at all or wish you could change, the are almost always the ones that happened while you were angry or afraid. When we are responding to fight or flight, we don't use good judgment – we use immediate judgment: We do what we think we have to at that moment.
If the issue on the news is not affecting your life TODAY – ignore it when you vote. Don't succumb to the temptation let one issue that has your back up define who you will put into command of portions of your future for YEARS. If you think back, very few issues you were outraged about a year ago matter quite so much to you today. Be smart. Keep the sensational issues to the television and the water cooler.
Peer Pressure/Habits
“But I always vote Democrat”
“Glen Beck said I should.”
“Rachel Maddow hates Republicans”
“God loves Republican Voters”
Look. The parties themselves have changed. More importantly, the individual candidates have a tremendous impact on how the specific party platform will (or won't) be followed. Democrats in the last 2 years have showed perfectly well that some of their number are more Republican than the candidates or members of congress who actually ran on that party's ticket. Don't vote ticket just because you always have or someone told you to. Know WHO you are voting ofr and WHAT they will do for YOU. Not just generally, but specifically in the next few years.
It won't be the end of the world if you vote for the 'other' side during an election. America hasn't fallen into chaos and anarchy because Bill Clinton took over from Bush, nor did the the rise of Ronald Reagan spell the end of liberal politics. Be willing to look at the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate and vote for the one that makes sense for RIGHT NOW. Remember, you can change your mind in the next election and involve yourself later to amend anything that turns out not be as helpful as you like.
I'm going long. The point here is that we have google and wikipedia and a host of other resources available so you can, with minimal effort, know who is asking for your vote and use that vote intelligently. Don't give it to someone else by blanket voting a party or deciding Oprah knows best and going with her endorsed candidate. Do you own research. Wrap both your hands around your vote and reclaim it for YOU and YOUR family.
The choice in November is going to be between a wide variety of Democrats who hold a lot of diverse beliefs on politics and a even wider diversity of Republicans whose stances on issues are sometimes so different as to make their similar party affiliation seem bizarre.
Pick the person that will help you TODAY. Everything else – party, politics, and pundits – is secondary.
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