Vote! And then what?
"In the face of the massive power grab and authoritarian overreach of our present moment, it’s time to get more connected than ever."
The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.
If you’re reading this, I feel pretty confident that you are planning to vote (or already have) in Wisconsin’s April 1 election. I doubt you need me to make the case for you. There are so many good explainers and arguments just on this site alone that you can/should refer to for that.
Elections are important. They do, indeed, have consequences. Up and down the ballot, races for everything from the State Supreme Court to local school board will impact our lives in ways big and small.
But there are still a lot of folks who don’t feel like voting makes a real difference, or who can’t easily access the ballot box. Their reasons are probably pretty diverse. There’s been a fairly successful campaign by certain parties to make elections sometimes feel like futile endeavors, politicians and politics far removed from the wants and needs of everyday people, and/or a choice between “lesser evils” that hardly inspires enthusiasm to take time out of your day to cast a ballot.
There are also a lot of new challenges and barriers to even accessing the ballot box for many people. Republicans have spent the better part of the last decade or so systematically dismantling the Voting Rights Act (and are only ramping up their efforts with the introduction of the SAVE Act), and now Trump wants to require proof of citizenship for all new registrations, while placing significant restrictions on mail-in voting. All of this depresses turnout among elderly, disabled, rural, Native, Black, Brown, LGBTQ, etc. people, who are less likely to have access to birth certificates, passports, and other official IDs, and/or less likely to have easy access to in-person polling places.
All of that alone is a good reason to vote, and to do whatever we can to help other folks see the importance of voting and to ensure they have the ability to do so if they want. I would also argue that it’s just as crucial that we all think about how to help people feel more involved in and connected to their communities and actions that help empower regular people to make positive change (i.e. to participate in politics). It’s not a chicken-and-egg situation. It’s both/and, 24/7/365.
Voting is a fundamental right that we can’t afford to take for granted, but I feel like it’s also become the catch-all, the only real participation expected of us as citizens.
That narrow focus, combined with things like gerrymandered districts and the utter lack of campaign finance laws, all contributes to the very understandable sense by many that their votes don’t really matter, or saddles us with candidates who don’t feel like they will actually represent us in the ways we want.
All of which is why I’d love to see more messaging that emphasizes the both/and of it all: “Vote and then ____.”
Vote and then run for local office. Vote and then start/get involved in a mutual aid network in your community. Vote and then check on and get to know your neighbors. Vote and then join your PTA. Vote and then write letters to your reps. Vote and then show up to community meetings. Vote and then volunteer for something good. Vote and then ask questions.
What else would you add to the list? What else are you doing to help you feel plugged into your community? To hold your elected representatives accountable? Because voting is a great start, but it shouldn’t also be the finish line of our civic involvement.
All of us have something to contribute. It only benefits the already powerful few to keep us disconnected and dispirited about/from politics. So in the face of the massive power grab and authoritarian overreach of our present moment, it’s time to get more connected than ever.
Have conversations with people who are on the fence about voting, or who to vote for, and really listen to their concerns. Offer them–and yourself–grace and patience and then some tangible ways to get excited about voting and to be more connected to their communities. Think about what they (and you) are interested in or have skills to offer towards, then find out who’s already doing it and get tapped in. Or start something that fills a gap!
We all want to feel like we belong, that we have some power to make change, that we matter. It’s high time we stopped looking for a singular person or entity to fix everything for us, while forgoing any of our own responsibilities to each other. I’d argue that’s how we got into the current mess we’re in.
Instead, look in the mirror. Look around at the grocery store, the school, the neighborhood park. We are who we’ve been waiting for. It’s time more of us acted like it.
Emily Mills is a longtime freelance writer/reporter based in Madison. They previously served as Editor of Our Lives, Wisconsin's only LGBTQ+ media outlet, and as an opinion columnist in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can currently find Emily's work at tonemadison.com and at their own Substack newsletter, @Grist From the Mills (emilymills.substack.com)
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