Here's What I Have To Say To Young People About The Election

Vote now, kid, or I'm up in your face until you do

Don’t even think about flying away while I’m talking to you: Image Sandeep Handa from Pixabay

I'm normally a live-and-let-live type. Not so much this week

As I write this there are eight days to the most consequential U.S. presidential election in my (reasonably long) lifetime.

I’ve avoided writing about it, but the elephant has grown so big and unruly that the living room has little space left to get around it. And to paraphrase Oscar Hammerstein II, the stakes are as high as that elephant’s eye.

Having threescore-and-ten under my belt confers an ability that some of the younger passengers on Spaceship Earth have yet to discover: I can see what’s coming.

Or rather, experience has taught me what to expect from what we can all see if we choose to look. The Young, if they happen to look up from their phones and regard the tunnel of their near future, are perfectly capable of seeing the light heading toward them. They just don’t comprehend its nature.

Cool, they think. Wonder what that . . . <phone burbles, instantly jerking them back to Screen World>.

It’s up to folks like me — and you, if you’re of an age — to point out: those lights you see at the end of the tunnel.

That’s a TRAIN. Heading right toward you.

The train can be stopped in its tracks or diverted onto a less ruinous route. But that’ll take everyone who sees it coming. Including you, kid.

A young man strides across the state college campus in our city

“Have you voted yet?” I ask him, planting myself squarely in his path. I am wearing a green sticker (because that’s about as nonpartisan a color as you can find) that says VOTE. “Did you know there’s early voting right here on campus today and tomorrow?”

He’s a nice young man, clearly raised to be respectful to earnest gray-haired ladies like me. He stops but looks uncomfortable. “I don’t think I’m gonna vote,” he says, looking sorry to disappoint me. “I don’t like either of the people running.”

I am not here to argue the case for my preferred candidate (as much as I would love to). I am here to empower him, to engage him in the system that he’s part of whether he likes it or not.

So I don’t give up. “Why would you give up your one chance to raise your voice?” I ask.

“I just don’t really like to get into it,” he says apologetically. “I mean, politics and all that.”

“I get it,” I say, grasping that he’s turned off by all the noise, preferring to keep his head down against howling winds of hate and division that swirl around this election.

Who can blame him?

But, tough darts. I haul out my paraphrased Leon Trotsky quote: “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. You do realize whoever wins is going to be making decisions that will affect you, right? Are you registered to vote?” He says he is, but he still squirms with reluctance.

The young man is Black. I refrain from pointing out that The Other Side does not have a terrific track record when it comes to representing people like him. Or people like me, women with the audacity to want things like bodily autonomy and fair pay.

So I push, but not so hard that I push him away. I merely smile at him and wait for an answer.

“That’s true,” he says, “But I’m not sure I really like either of —” His voice fades as he shrugs.

“Your vote isn’t a Valentine,” I say. “It’s not a love letter and it doesn’t mean you’re joining their fan club. It’s a chess move. You pick the one who you think is going to get you closer to the future you want. ”

“I haven’t thought of it that way,” he says. Like I said, a very nice young man. “But I don’t know if I’m going to have time.”

I happily play the guilt card

Gently at first: “I know, it’s a pain in the ass,” I say. “But we’re not hunkering down in the ruins in Gaza or getting shot at in Ukraine, right?” He nods.

“And the way I look at it,” I continue, “sometimes I have to hold my nose and vote for whoever I think is the least bad choice. And lots of times it hasn’t gone my way anyway. But my father-in-law stormed the beach at Normandy. I had friends who died in Viet Nam. So, you and I can vote; it’s the least we can do. Today there’s a polling location right here on campus, and it’s never going to get easier. Will you do it?”

I smile and wait. He squirms.

“I’ll think about it,” he finally says.

“Great!” I say, beaming at him. “Look at it this way; tonight you can go to sleep knowing you made one old lady in Idaho really happy. It’s not every day you get to do that, right?”

He grins. “OK, I promise I’ll think about it,” he says, and away he goes.

I have other similar conversations, but that one stays with me

Meanwhile, when I stroll within sight lines of the on-campus polling — I’m only volunteering to get out the vote, not expressly electioneering for any particular candidate, but we volunteers still keep our required 250-foot distance — I’m pleased to see an impressive line of waiting students.

Some kids I talk to are voting in their first election. They’re excited and a little nervous about it, and they have questions. Do they need to show I.D. (the answer is yes, in Idaho, and their student I.D. won’t be accepted, although their concealed-carry license would be — don’t get me started). What if they live in another state? What if their address doesn’t match the one on their state I.D.?

The other volunteers and I give them information on how to get around whatever barriers are in their way so they can exercise their legal right and civic duty to cast their ballots.

I return to campus the next day

It’s the last day of on-campus early voting, and today I run into students whom I spoke to yesterday and who proudly show me their “I Voted” stickers.

There are, of course, some students who ignore me or who stalk past me like I’m trying to sell them something or foist a Bible tract on them. I don’t take that personally — there are, in fact, people on campus doing both of those things.

But my volunteer partner and I are hearing many more affirmative responses today than we did yesterday.

Just before my shift ends, I see the young man from yesterday heading in my direction. He spots me and a grin spreads over his face.

Thumbs up.

There are times when it’s good to be a pushy old lady.