(Editor’s note: Leandro Leviste is a 15-year-old student at International School Manila. For most students, current affairs and international relations are as daunting as trying to beat Slash in Guitar Hero. Not so for Lean who reads The Economist every week. For this young man, the vice president of his student countil, politics is a dirty yet infinitely riveting game.)
Politics has always been dirty, and politicians have always been the butt of all jokes. A few years ago, that seemed like an unconquerable fact of life. But in the same way that Barack Obama has proven that a black guy can become America’s president, he’s proven that politicians — some of them, at least — aren’t all that bad. Obama has renewed America’s faith in politics. He has turned the skeptics into believers, and in doing so, has solved America’s biggest problem — one that still eludes us Filipinos.
The problem is an apathetic electorate. It’s no surprise that elections aren’t greeted with enthusiastic cheers for a better tomorrow. Experience has taught people to expect little out of elections. This consensus is not so much cynical as it is realistic. And as a result, barely 50 percent of Americans even bothered to vote in the last presidential election.
But Barack Obama has convinced people otherwise. Living up to his campaign slogan, “Change we can believe in,” Obamamania has somehow convinced America to look towards the government as the solution to life’s problems. One of Obama’s rallies drew a crowd of 75,000 people. Obama has also shattered fundraising records, so far collecting more than $300 million from 1.5 million individual supporters. In the Democratic primaries earlier this year, voter turnout in some states had doubled over the previous election. Even on YouTube, the cult of Obama has produced the likes of “Obama Girl,” a self-made celebrity whose videos have been viewed almost nine million times. Obama, the superstar politician, has achieved what P. Diddy and 50 Cent, with their “Vote or Die” campaign, could not in past elections: not only has he gotten people involved, but he has made politics cool.
Clearly, this is all a refreshing change from ol’ John Kerry in 2004. But Obamamania’s impact is even more significant: by convincing people to vote, Obama has helped America help itself.
The idea that democracy is the solution to a country’s problems is self-evident, but has long been forgotten. Even though hopes for a politician are often dashed and the cynicism is justified, is it constructive? If your candidate doesn’t win the election, then someone else’s will. The apathy that convinces you to abstain from voting will only perpetuate the problems that made you apathetic in the first place. Next to shooting yourself in the foot, abstaining from the vote is the stupidest thing you can do.
Take the example of the last two US elections, which the Republicans won, both by narrow margins. The Democrats failed because their voters didn’t even bother to vote. Many traditionally democratic voters, such as the educated, the youth and the middle class (all more capable of choosing a president than fiercely dogmatic Republicans, who did vote) proved indifferent to democracy. Skeptical that anything good could come out of an election, they stayed at home. What they got was even worse. That attitude won them eight years of George W. Bush — along with five years in Iraq, an overwhelming national debt, a rejected Kyoto Protocol, a tarnished reputation in the international community (what more the Middle East), and a New Orleans that was underwater. Truly, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Obama has convinced Americans to do that “something.” By voting in the upcoming elections, the new and improved American electorate will avoid repeating their mistakes, and we should too.
The Philippines may not have a Barack Obama, but we should learn from America’s mistakes anyway. We can’t lose faith in democracy. Corrupt politicians feed on the indifference of well-informed voters. To abstain from voting is to perpetuate all of today’s problems — it means meeting injustice with apathy, when it should it be met with indignation. Our options are neatly laid out. Unless we learn from America’s mistakes, then we will live not with an “Obama,” or even a “McCain” — but eight more years with our own George W. Bush.