Voting

I've been waiting eight years for tomorrow, for the chance to finally, really, once and for all to vote George W. Bush's party out of the White House. Four years ago I told myself to get more involved politically, and in small but, I think, meaningful ways, I have. I've gotten much more informed about politics, I read a lot more political news, I try to understand the opposing viewpoints, I try to understand the perspective of people who think only about the economics of world politics, and ignore all social issues (not that I can really sympathize with this view). I try to challenge my own political ideas, and I try to engage the people I work with and their ideas, too. I feel I have a certain responsibility as an educated person, not to convince the less educated people I work with the error of their ways, but to really see where they're coming from, and to challenge their preconceptions. I feel it's my duty to broaden their horizons, but not to come across as condescending, as elitist. I think the main reason why, for example, farmers vote to spite the city (say in upstate New York, or most of the rest of Oregon
that's not Portland) is because they feel that the elite overclass tries to force it's self-righteously forward view of culture on those they look down upon as rubes. And they feel that way, largely because it's true. I've felt it necessary to understand "the common man" not from the perspective of a benefactor but as an equal. In Boston, there's a huge, visceral class divide between the "townies" and the "yuppies", and this two-way resentment and sense of superiority causes a huge amount of political divisons that don't need to, and wouldn't otherwise, exist.