Look, we know it’s not that college-age kids are lazy or indifferent.

It’s hard to vote. It’s hard to figure out when and where and how, especially if you’re living on campus or anywhere away from whoever’s declaring you on their taxes. What’s your address for the sake of voting? How do you register? Where do you get voting info? Who the hell are all these names and how do I find out more about the ones that aren’t in the top three races? What the hell does a Parks District Board of Directors do, anyway?

This is sometimes complicated for me, and I’ve lived at the same place for more than 20 years.

It’s made hard for you ON PURPOSE. Voting originally belonged to white male landowners, and they have fought like hell to keep it from being extended to anyone else. And every time some new group got the right to vote, they worked to make it hard for that new group to actually exercise that right.

Try not to think of voting as “your civic duty” or “your way to shape the future.” Those are buzzwords that everyone knows damn well you’re likely to ignore until you feel stable - until you have an address and a job and a plan for the next five years that’s not “um maybe things will get better?”

Fuck that. Think of voting as “How I Can Annoy Those Assholes,” and keep it at the front of your mind that Those Assholes are hoping very hard that you won’t show up to do it. That they’re trying to hide it from you, and doing everything short of outright lying (…okay, sometimes including outright lying) to keep you from finding out how it works.

Don’t vote to Make A Better America.

Vote to make Those Assholes scared of you.