Not Voting and Proud of It. How Scary.

I got a new perspective yesterday on America’s voters – or, more to the point, non-voters. It was both illuminating and scary as hell. A group of us drove to Pennsylvania from our home near New York to register voters, and the Obama campaign dispatched us to an inner-city supermarket in Allentown.
     As we stood outside, asking passers-by if they were registered (if not, we could register them), we got the usual mix of reactions: “Of course; I can’t wait.” A curt “Yes.” “Been voting for years.” An indecipherable grunt (which we variously interpreted as “Yes, and don’t bother me” or “No, and I’m too ashamed to admit it.”) Gratifyingly, we found quite a few people who – sometimes with a small nudge, sometimes eagerly – wanted to register. One woman said something about God superseding all such earthly matters (a bit scary in its own way), and one man, who clearly spoke no English, reached into his pocket and offered me some change. (I had my broken wrist in a cast, and my wife, armed with the clipboard and papers, was some distance away, so I guess I offered a pitiful picture. But this did plant an idea for extra future income.)
     The alarming thing, though, was the number of people – at least a dozen – who lashed out, often almost violently, as if an invitation to take part in the electoral process were a personal assault. “No, I’m not voting for any of them.” “They’re all crooks.” Or often just a clear, belligerent, unapologetic “I don’t vote.”
     Now I can sort of see voting for McCain and Perky Sarah (though to do so I have to close my eyes and imagine myself uninformed, narrow-minded, with a hearty sprinkling of nasty biases). I can even, with a greater stretch, imagine feeling apathetic, helpless, and knowing deep down that I probably won’t bother voting, but if so I’d be too humiliated to confess, to some pathetic old guy in a cast loitering in front of a supermarket, my abdication of a citizen’s crucial right and responsibility in the democratic process. Some of the grunters surely fell in this category.
     But what I just can’t get my mind around is that so many people could confess that apathy, that abdication, out loud, angrily and bitterly. They are so alienated that they have given up even their right to change things. That is scary.
      The trip was gratifying for the voters we signed up – and invaluable as an educational experience.