Don’t Resign Yourself to Absurd Elections

This election cycle has felt strange. At least it has for me and many other Americans.

Ostensibly, it’s as consequential, polarizing and chaotic an election as ever. But somehow Americans appear to be detached from the political reality unfolding around them. We’re at risk of growing so accustomed to the polarized and dysfunctional nature of recent elections we’ll begin to expect nothing more. 

Americans seem to be withdrawn from the current state of public affairs, perhaps overwhelmed by the chaos or disillusioned by the lack of meaningful change. Maybe we’ve simply come to expect the turbulent flavor served over the last three elections. Whatever the reason, apathy not only appears to be on the menu in 2024, but to have become our dish of choice.

National elections in the U.S. have fundamentally changed in the age of social media, and not necessarily for the better. Campaigns are increasingly dominated by sensationalism and shallow soundbites, focused more on emotional manipulation and division than on substantive policy debates. 

Those of us born in this century have known no other way, and our elders seem to have forgotten what came before.

America’s ungraceful thrust into this brave new world occurred in 2016, and there was revulsion befitting the occasion. Americans made their dissatisfaction abundantly clear through protests, marches and intense political engagement. Given the election’s unprecedented nature, apathy didn’t seem like an option. 

Many expected it would be remembered as an anomalous election cycle, and with 2020, normalcy would return. 

How mistaken we were.

The confluence of events leading up to the 2020 election — from the deepening of the partisan divide to the ongoing global pandemic — managed to raise the political temperature beyond what most thought possible in 2016. 

The stakes were palpable, and across the political spectrum, Americans asserted their belief fundamental change was needed. As voter turnout surged to over 60%, it was evident apathy — just as in 2016 — wasn’t an option.

In both 2016 and 2020, Americans called for significant changes in how the political system operates, reflecting deep dissatisfaction with the status quo. These demands took various forms, from the rise of movements like Black Lives Matter to the widespread push for universal healthcare seen in the support for candidates like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. 

The 2016 election saw a populist surge that rejected traditional establishment politics, and the 2020 election was driven by calls for more substantial action on issues like economic inequality, racial injustice and climate change.

Now, in an America domestically and internationally embroiled in increasing precarity — and lacking the monumental political shift its citizens have been demanding for nearly a decade — one would expect the public to sharpen their complaints and demands.

And yet, there’s a widespread sense of resignation to the inadequacy of the way things are. The galvanizing energy once driving change now feels diminished, replaced by a quiet exhaustion. Americans have been making their voices heard for the past eight years, but in 2024 many seem to have fallen silent, accepting no one is truly listening. 

We must preserve our dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs if we hope to emerge from them. Allowing the ungraceful momentum of 21st century elections to wash us into detachment and reluctant tolerance will surely spell disaster. It’s now necessary to collectively create and cherish a vision for a better future and know it can be achieved.

Accepting the way things are will lead to nothing better — and could potentially foster something worse. This isn’t meant to encourage frenzied panic, but instead is a call to maintain hope and a belief in the possibility for improvement. 

The future isn’t set in stone — it’s ours to shape. But this requires more than fleeting frustration. It demands a lasting commitment to evolve and sustain our efforts to enact change.