OPINION: A letter to nonvoters: the blood of democracy is on your hands

Photo via: The White House/Public domain/Wikimedia Commons

Cara Finnegan, a Senior studying Sociology and lifelong Ohioan, addresses nonvoters in this year’s election.

If you didn’t vote, then shut up about the election. Stop talking about politics, stop complaining about policy, and for the love of God, don’t look at people who are upset about the unsettling results of this election and tell them it “isn’t a big deal.” 

Because the fact is, the results of this election are a huge deal. 

I’m not talking about international students, recent immigrants or citizens in U.S. territories who have a real stake in political and legislative change; I’m talking about people who say they “don’t do politics” or “don’t want to vote.” There is a fundamental difference between not being eligible to vote due to structural political power and for choosing not to vote because you “don’t feel like it.”

By consciously choosing not to vote in this election, you are spitting in the faces of generations of women and people of color in our country who fought structural inequity in American society for the right to exercise their right to vote. 

There are more than 3.6 million U.S. citizens living in U.S. territories who deserve the right to have a say in the presidential vote. Residents of U.S. territories pay taxes and contribute their unique cultural traditions to American society, and they still lack representation in Congress. These vital stakeholders in American society deserve a vote, yet are denied that right. 

Shame on you for consciously choosing to not use your right to vote, when 3.6 million American citizens are denied that right. 

I am a lifelong resident of Ohio’s 5th District, one of the heavily gerrymandered Ohio districts. It takes roughly three hours to drive from the western end of the 5th district, to the eastern end of Lorain County. 

Ohio’s Issue 1 was a bipartisan ballot measure created to remedy the practice of gerrymandering; yet it failed at the hands of political division and confusing ballot language from the GOP. To say that I am upset about Issue 1 failing is an understatement. 

There is immense privilege in choosing not to utilize your rights and your stake in American democracy, when some are fighting for the right to live in this country, exist as who they are, and have bodily autonomy.  

If you had the ability to wake up on Nov. 6 and know that the results of the presidential election won’t impact your right to exist as you are, you have immense privilege in American society. If you didn’t wake up in fear of being deported, denied healthcare, or shot by law enforcement among other things, you should check your privilege. 

I encourage you to not only check your privilege, but to check on your femme, queer and BIPOC friends today. 

If you chose not to vote because you “aren’t into politics,” look at yourself in the mirror and understand that your existence is inherently political. Your existence is the byproduct of a woman’s physical sacrifice and labor. Your mother’s life and ability to birth you was a result of reproductive care, funding to our healthcare system, and her ability to have autonomy. 

As an American, your life is inherently political. When you walk on the bricks of Ohio University, you are walking on publicly-funded bricks at a public university. Your votes impact the ways that public infrastructure is handled. 

If you chose not to vote, don’t bother complaining about your taxes, your rights, and the resources available in your community. Don’t complain when the cost of living skyrockets because President-Elect Donald Trump plans to enact tariffs that will likely increase the cost of living. Don’t send your “thoughts and prayers” when kids continue to die at the hands of gun violence in schools. Thoughts and prayers can’t fix a system that is fundamentally broken. 

Check your privilege and get registered to vote for the next election. 

As we soon will see the effects of another Trump presidency, the seams holding democracy together will loosen. Division will continue. Women will likely die in hospitals as a result of lessened reproductive protections. Books will be banned. Transgender and queer youth will suffer. Kids will die gruesome deaths at the hands of gun violence. 

There is no point in my chastising of Trump voters and their crooked morals; I will not change anyone’s mind with my musings, and most conservatives just simply don’t agree with my beliefs.

At least Trump voters chose to have a spine and use their right to vote, even if they voted for a fascist.

As I overlook the bricks of Court Street from the Brennen’s window on this gloomy, depressing day, I am reflecting on what the future holds. 

Tomorrow I will choose hope. I will choose community. I will choose to organize, to protest, and to work for a better tomorrow. But today, I will mourn the death of American democracy as we know it at the hands of a second Trump presidency.

As our country descends into fascism at the hands of the Trump administration, the blood of democracy will forever stain the hands of American nonvoters. 

Please note that these views and opinions do not reflect those of The New Political.