Yesterday was “Voter Registration Day”! Yes, that’s a day that exists apparently. It was plastered all over social media and, well, it was annoying as shit. I had a friend remark that he felt like he was being harassed. I thought that was funny as he actually ran for a local office last year. It’s not that folks like us are politically disinterested, we just kind see things for what they are. I won’t speak for my friend but I consider it kind of disingenuous. The agenda isn’t to have a better democracy, it’s to funnel more participants into the lackluster form of it that we already have.

We’re told over and over again that we’re stuck with certain things because that’s just the way it is. We’re capitalist, because that’s just the way it is. We can only vote for the “lesser evil” between the Democratic and Republican Parties because that’s just the way it is. We can’t vote for third parties because we have a “first past the post” electoral system and that’s just the way it is. If you don’t follow along with this, you are part of the problem. If you decide not to vote at all, you don’t get to complain. They force a lot of these implied rules on us. Sounds like a very free and open democratic society, don’t you think?

Voting is important because this is how we effect meaningful change, or so we’ve been told. I suppose this would be true if we lived under the confines of a direct democracy or a truly representative one rather than the one we’ve got. Currently, we get to vote for candidates who might, and I stress might, offer us some kind of nominally progressive reform. Progress is offered piecemeal. The Democrats give us a trail of Reese’s Pieces to satiate us in the here and now, while the Republicans swoop in like those government agents and take it all away. Sorry, really wasn’t expecting to go all E.T. over this. It’s a seesaw act. A balance is difficult to achieve and even if we could it wouldn’t get us anywhere.

They’ve taken to showing up at activist events. They’ll appeal to you on any pet issue. You want free healthcare? They’re not going to give it to you but you should sign up and vote for them anyway. At least they won’t take away what little you have. You don’t like immigrants being put in cages? They’ll make sure the cages are more humane! Do black lives matter to you? They’re the less racist ones so why not vote for them already! Common sense gun legislation? They don’t have it but neither do the other guys! You’re anti-war? Well you’re just shit out of luck on that one, why not focus on domestic issues and vote for them anyway!

The more I think about it, the more I think this is all one giant Stockholm Syndrome experiment. We are sympathetic towards our captors, preferring one set of them over another. As long as they continue to sell us on these lies, we’ll remain right where they want us to be. Subservient and subjugated. That is until we realize that there’s no ballot we can cast to set us free.