Dear Undecided Voters (Otherwise Known as My Neighbors),
I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I ask “why the hell are you so undecided?” Seriously, this is getting a bit ridiculous. What do you have to be undecided about?
Sure, two centrist politicians with Harvard Law degrees, mandated healthcare laws and weird speaking cadences seem similar on the surface, but beneath it all they really are not anything alike. I mean, it is not as if you are choosing between John. F Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.
Let us not pretend as if you are well informed. Believe me, I am pretty informed and very decided. And I know what you are thinking: “Oh, you Starbucks-drinking, PBS-watching, political-junkie liberal, ‘what do you know about us?’” Now that may be true, but there is an uncomfortable truth here.
The truth of the matter is I know who you are very well. I know you better than you know yourself. In my hometown, I am surrounded by you.
You are the kind, albeit clueless, soccer mom neighbor more concerned with why the lady up the street sold her boat house than you are to pick up the newspaper. You are the overworked accountant more concerned with his mortgage payments, and whose wife cannot seem to comprehend that you cannot afford to add an extra room to the house. You unwind at the end of the day by watching hours of ESPN instead of CNN. You crack open a Budweiser to ease your idle troubles.
I have lived among you, and I know your ways.
The reality is you do not care. Sure, you may claim you care and that you are not ignorant or misinformed. You claim the reason you fail to understand the difference between the national debt and the deficit has everything to do with you being busy. You have lives, spouses, kids and bills. After all, politics is not your thing, right?
Instead of taking a few precious minutes of your free time to Google Mitt Romney’s tax plan or the president’s stance on trade, you indulge instant gratification of the worst kind; mindless television, drinking and gossiping.
Hidden in the pockets of “real America” (hey, Sarah Palin said it) are not the silent majorities of Lee Atwater and Richard Nixon. No. In “real America,” mass ignorance of the Honey Boo Boo worshipers dwell. It is a world isolated from poverty, war and the cold, cruel hardships of the world. You know, the stuff you see on your $200 box set of The Wire you cannot stop bragging about.
The real reason you are undecided is because you do not take the time to actually inform yourselves. You have it so good. Those problems were for those kinds of people. Your ignorance is justified because you are so precious; politicians pander to your ignorance every day of the week, ignoring those who need help like the old, sick and poor.
It is sad that one of the most intelligent conversations about politics I ever had occurred in an inner city beauty shop. But at the neighborhood barbeque, when I asked your opinion on the election, you shrugged with indifference, not knowing Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney’s running mate.
It must be nice living in a bubble-wrapped world, where you do not care who runs the country.
It must be nice having me, a 20-year-old explain the Electoral College to you.
It must be nice whining about your lawn, your designer purse and the soccer coach who does not start your kid, instead of worrying about important matters.
It must be nice to know that despite your ignorance, the American media constantly worships you, as if your flightiness is some noble quality.
I however, do not think it’s nice. Change the channel, study up on the issues and stop watching crap television. Maybe, you just might learn something. Maybe you will finally realize, as Plato realized long ago, that the shadows on the cave are not reality but a delusion.
But what do I know? I am already decided.
