October 24, 2022

Today I Voted

Today I voted in our city’s municipal election, casting my ballot, which is the best available tool I know to underline my support for the messy business that is democracy. And this support is more important than its ever been, at a moment in history where too many bad actors are unabashed about using democracy to their own nefarious (and undemocratic) ends.

But those bad actors aren’t the whole of the problem.

They’re the worst part of the problem, for sure, and a clear and urgent threat to values most of us hold dear, but—upon reflection—too many times I’ve reacted to that threat in ways that only stoked those same tensions, deepened divisions, possibly even made the problem worse. And I think that if we’re ever going to find a way to get ourselves out of this even messier-than-usual mess, those of us who care about democracy need to take responsibility for being part of the problem and pledge to do things differently going forward.

So here’s what I’m going to do:

I’m going to respect election results, even if I don’t like them, even if I think they might do damage to our communities. I’m going to allow that I’m not always right and that I might not always have the answers, or that other people might have different ones. I’m not going to demonize my neighbours who voted for these results, even if it seems like their values are different than mine. I’m not going to suppose the election or this leadership is illegitimate just because I don’t like how it all turned out. I will not underline divisions by insisting that we’re different than they are, that we care and they don’t, that we’re human and they’re heartless. I will try to understand others’ points of view, even if I don’t agree with them. I will not write these neighbours off. I will insist that we have common ground, which is not just a pipe dream, but a necessity, because we all have to find a way to live here together. Literally, common ground is the one issue here that’s not debatable.

At a moment of such extreme reaction, I am voting to turn my own dial down a notch, to not necessarily see my opponent as my enemy. I have noticed over the past few years that people have a knack for living up to your worst expectations of them, that when we insist on othering, too many people follow in kind, so I’m going to expect better of these neighbours, and not give up on persuading them to be part of a system that goes to work for the many. I will see it as my challenge to tell a better story, a truer story, even, instead of deciding the problem is everyone else. (And not just because if the problem is everyone else, I am simply powerless.)

We’re here at a moment of true absurdity, it’s true, with elected officials spouting conspiracy theories, making laws based on quackery, and rolling progress back decades—while this is not the case in the election I voted in today, it was the case in the Mayoral race four years ago and continues to be in general. It’s been horrifying to watch this whole thing unfold.

But fighting fundamentalism with fundamentalism will only make the moment worse, and so I’m leaning in hard to democracy instead, placing faith in the process, the people, my neighbours.

Of course that’s all a bit easier in a municipal election where the stakes aren’t so high, where the neighbours are my actual neighbours, where party politics haven’t skewed the mix as much, and I have a slate of exciting and promising candidates for city councillor to choose from.

But it’s practice for democracy going forward, when the stakes matter more than ever.

I’m not going to let bad guys turn me into a monster.