My father never missed an opportunity to cast his vote. He was part of the “Incredible Generation” of Black men and women who put their lives on the line for the right to cast a ballot. My father, a World War II veteran, was a fearless partner with the truly great American idea of one man, one vote.
My mother, who recently passed away one month before her 100th birthday, for more than 70 years didn’t miss a chance to exercise her right and responsibility to raise her voice in the polling place. As she grew older it became an honored tradition for my mother to be escorted to the voting booth by her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. Pictures were taken followed by lunch at Cracker Barrel. Perhaps the most important part of this ritual was the passing down to the generations the expectation that as a member of this family you vote.
My mother and father were not only soldiers and citizens as part of the much-heralded Greatest Generation who put their lives on the line to resist tyranny and defend freedoms such as the right to vote. But as members of the Incredible Generation, their fight for freedom and justice, and the chance to vote, continued after the wars in Europe and Asia had ended. The common link that both groups shared was their willingness to put their lives on the line for a cause they believed in.
Which brings me to the results of the recent Rhode Island Primary Elections. When I went to my voting site at North Providence High School that afternoon, I was the only voter there. No one before me, no one after me. To be fully transparent, I have missed a couple of non-major elections over the years. I cannot claim to ride a high horse. But this election seemed to me to be important. The winds of change were beginning to gain momentum. I felt them growing, slowly, quietly. But even my Spidey senses on full blast were caught off guard by the final results.
I wondered how three incumbents, who were not necessarily connected, could all lose on the same night. Was the vote rigged? Did counting machines get hacked by actors from a country in South America? Was it the Russians? Did armed, masked ICE agents show up at the polling stations to save America from massive hordes of illegal people attempting to steal the elections? Or was there as an assumption on the part of those sitting officials that it was, historically speaking, almost impossible to beat an incumbent. Did they forget that in low turnout primaries an opponent only needs to energize a small percentage of voters to win? They may even employ campaign strategies to convince the complacent majority that their candidate is leading in the polls by such a wide margin that it was not necessary to waste time voting.
I realize that I’m already on a soapbox with an audience that includes everyone that reads this article. I could suppose that because I have a pulpit, I also have, going back to my Spider-Man reference, I have some degree of power and thus some measure of responsibility to get the reader to think about the world we are living in. A world that is becoming more complicated and dangerous not century to century, or decade to decade or even year to year, but day to day. I worry that we the people are not only losing the power of self-determination to sinister players, we are giving those rights away because we didn’t have to bleed for them.
While I am aware that my vote may not cause seismic shifts in the political and social order, stepping into a voting booth reminds me that I’d better be mindful of other things going on such as the dangers associated with the concentration of wealth and power into a smaller group of people, the emerging power of AI, global warming, and the erosion of the American Democracy.
I can only hope that my one vote will somehow make a difference.
