OUR VOICES: For Those Who Didn’t Vote

By Dr. John E. Warren

In California, it is expected that there will be low voter turnout. It is anticipated that this will be the case in a number of states holding primaries because a number of people are frustrated with the problems of the pandemic, high gas prices, and inflation at the grocery store and across the country.

But apathy is not the answer.

As a matter of fact, the Extreme Right mainly sees an opportunity for the Republican Party to run its candidates for office at all levels, with anticipated success for those who bought the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the Presidency. That Right Wing element of ultra-conservatives is counting on low voter turnout among the rank and file of Americans, many of whom are Democrats. Low voter turnout among people of color and young white voters who did go to the polls in 2020 to elect President Biden represents an opportunity for those seeking to overthrow our democracy, to gain positions of power for the 2024 election they otherwise could not win.

So for those of you concerned about gun violence, but not enough to vote, your non-vote was just a vote for the NRA and their 50 U.S. Senators who still will not ban assault weapons.

Your nonvote is a vote of confidence for those U.S. Senators who continue to block the Voting Rights Act, who refuse to pass laws making Roe vs. Wade a federal law as opposed to leaving its fate up to a bought and paid for Republican U.S.

Supreme Court majority no longer listening to the American people as it did in the days of Brown vs, Board of Education in 1954 and a host of sim-ilar decisions since.

Those of you who didn’t bother to vote did cast a vote against the George Floyd Act ; you cast a vote against the $22 billion dollars needed to continue the fight against the pandemic while sending $44 billion to Ukraine.

Your failure to vote and that of your family and friends in other states might have set the stage to elect a Republican to the U.S. Congress to shift the balance of power away from the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives or set the stage to elect just one more Republican to the U.S. Senate to shift the balance of power back to Mitch McConnell and the Republicans instead of giving us needed votes to overcome the Filibuster.

Yes, there are consequences to your decisions of apathy which many of us will have to bear.

So the next time you have a complaint about what the government is doing, remember, you are getting just what you deserve. Unfortunately, those of us who did vote, have to share your fate.

Dr. John E. Warren is publisher of The San Diego Voice and Viewpoint.