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Our generation is clearly at a great mental disconnect from our government, our country and our world. No administration in the history of the United States has made this clearer than the bull-headed presidency of George W. Bush.
Past presidents have at least pretended to hold on to the tenets of a democratic republic. The past seven years have found us struggling to keep up with a series of blundering decisions. The administration has been so unheeding of the wishes of the people of this nation that we, the young generation that must inherit the confusion, have felt abandoned – left behind in the dust.
Growing up, we were promised that a democracy is self-righting and that the will of the people is the final decision-maker. Today, we find the president threatening to begin the third war of his presidency and to conduct it with nuclear arms if he deems it necessary.
It is no wonder, then, that the American student protest is a non-entity in comparison to other nations, and voter turnout is low, even on college campuses. Apathy pervades our social atmosphere, but the reason is not that people our age have no faith in government – it’s because they have too much faith in their government. If our generation had no faith in government they would be scared and work for change, but because they are not being harmed and things are “good enough” they will allow great injustices to pass them by in exchange for being left alone.
It is a perennial problem, but one that has become amplified quite recently. This is not to place the blame wholly in the hands of just one administration – that would be giving it too much credit. A whole chain of presidents and congresses has increasingly alienated its constituents from the political process by making it appear complex and best left to elected officials.
The pseudo-election of President Bush in 2000 showed that neither Congress nor the citizens of this country are willing to stand up to corruption because those it serves best will still do their job. The re-election in 2004 was manufactured by threats of instability and the promise of more terrorist attacks should the Democrats win. Only the serious ineptitude of President Bush and his exclusive group of friends managed to override this fear, causing the Democratic takeover in 2006.
This, however, was a bastion of false hope. The margin in the senate, while slim, gave a clear mandate to the Democratic party to clean house and end the war. Well, here we are, a year and some months later, and who could say that anything has changed?
Yet there are no riots. Where are the unafraid citizens who will argue with their representatives until they’re purple in the face and then protest? None of those things can be found because after a while, the abandonment feels ordinary. We have invested all of our faith in the government and it has failed us, as usual, but it’s easier to keep believing than give up and work for change.
This, then, is the most important thing that young people must remember in the 2008 presidential election and when they look back at Tuesday’s primary results. We can vote for any candidate we think may bring change to this nation, but come Nov. 5, we cannot go back to trusting whomever has taken the executive office because then nothing will change.
The common lesson is that there are three equal branches of government, but what we must remember is that superseding those branches are the people of the United States. It is our country, our democracy and it must act according to our will. In order to do that, our representatives must hear our will. The most important thing we must remember is that this is our election, and if we want change, we cannot vote and walk away. We must be vigilant and we must change what our government cannot: ourselves.
Jeff Hake is a member of the Progressive Student Alliance and the Maine Peace Action Committee.
