Jordan knew that the closer Election Day came, the angrier his dad got. He tried his best to ignore his dad’s hateful yelling as he watched his favorite political news show and ranted and raved about how terrible the opposing party would be for our country.
Jordan realized how little this made sense after the grueling semester of Civics in his junior year; for if he remembered just one thing he learned it would be the system of democracy. An entire unit focused solely on the system of government that involves decisions that are made by a majority vote of individuals who elect a representative to office.
The main goal is to do what’s best for the people, but all he saw was constant bickering over things that should not even be an issue and both sides fighting against each other about what is right or wrong.
Adults obviously don’t realize that they aren’t obeying the lessons they spend years drilling into their children’s head. You’d think that with all they preach about sharing and working together that they’d be experts on the subject. Judging by their actions, they clearly are not.
As Jordan browsed Facebook, a slew of personal opinions and news stories cluttered his feed from people who held onto the belief that they could somehow miraculously change someone’s mind. It never actually changed anyone’s mind, of course.
Ever since he was little, Jordan believed his dad always to be right, but it became clearer by the day that even his college-educated dad wasn’t always right. He felt like a fool for believing that his father’s PHD meant he knew the right answer to everything.
Now that he was old enough to vote, the pressure in making the right decision was greater than ever. If he decided not to follow his dad’s footsteps and support his family’s preferred political stance, he’d never hear the end of it. However, if he made his chose simply to make his dad happy, Jordan felt that he’d be selling his own dignity and dad, with his dad stubborn ways, would win.
He understood now why his grandma always said that he got a double dose of stubbornness from both her and grandpa. Jordan finally realized why his dad and grandpa argued a lot, for any disagreement led to the clashing of horns that almost always ended in agreeing to disagree, or if they got lucky, they’d get the chance to tell the other that he told him so, while sporting a smug win and rush of victory.
Jordan seriously felt like his dad just blindly followed a car full of clowns while convincing himself that the slapstick comedy and cheesy humor was an example of the best ways to behave.
However, since his dad thought following a bunch of clowns was the right thing to do, there was no changing his mind. Jordan realized that he either agreed or gave his dad opportunity to abuse his parental right to lecture. Jordan normally ended by agreeing so he could at least maintain what sanity he had left.
In just two days, the election would be over and many people would stop caring about politics for another four years. He never particularly paid attention to the past elections, but now, he’d be part of deciding the next president. With that in mind, he actually cared about how it all worked.
Naturally, he had changed a lot since the last election. He’d learned a lot, and experienced enough to understand how important the topics that the candidates debated really are. He now knew why people cared so much about certain issues.
He couldn’t understand, however, why people held beliefs that he thought should obviously be opposite. How hard is it to make a choice that ends with the same results? Why fight over who can do what in a situation where the only choice should belong to the individual in question? Each question lowered a heavier layer of doubt, and with every realization he came closer to realizing that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Some decisions were his alone to make.
There was no school on that Tuesday, yet Jordan waited in line in the high school’s gym. Like usual, the cafeteria was loud with conversations and the clamoring of tables, the large number of adults and lack of students felt very unusual. He felt like an adult and like he was actually making a difference. He had weighed the options, scrutinized each candidate, and in the end, had made his own decision. Jordan realized whichever choice he made wasn’t even his dad’s business. Plus, if his dad didn’t know, then he had no reason to be disappointed and explain why his decision is wrong.
As his dad yelled at the TV downstairs, it became obvious that he wasn’t happy with the early results reported on the news. Jordan decided not to even stress and just play the new Halo game. He turned the volume up to drown out his dad’s temper tantrum below.
His mind began to wander as a cut scene played out on the game. He realized just how fortunate he was to be active in choosing a leader. Some nations had no choice and they could only hope that life would become better rather than worse when the next group of rebels overthrow and replace the current leaders.
Even with the government constantly quarrelling with each other and the unfair laws, Americans have it easy compared to the problems faced by some other nations. He knew he had a right that many don’t, and wasting that right is wasting the freedom and liberty awarded by the founding fathers.