Column: I voted and felt nothing

I’ve been accompanying my parents to vote for as long as I’ve been alive. I distinctly remember standing next to my parents outside on sunny autumn afternoons as they patiently waited to cast their ballots. We stood in snaking lines outside the Herb Young Community Center in Cary, N.C. for what felt like hours as we awaited our turn to enter the building.

I would watch both of them quietly take an empty ballot to a booth, proudly carry it to the scanner and walk out with an “I voted” sticker. They brandished these stickers like badges of honor, wearing them until the adhesive wore off.

Their enthusiasm to vote was contagious, and I grew up influenced by the assumption that voting would one day fill me with the same pride and satisfaction. But this slowly faded as I aged and began to take in the state of politics around me. Voting no longer seemed like anything to get excited about.

This past weekend, I accompanied my parents to that same community center where I had observed them vote so many times before. This time, however, I was no longer just a bystander.

At the polling place, countless employees and volunteers alike congratulated me for being a first-time voter, patting me on the back when I submitted my ballot. They were genuinely happy for me and acted like I had reached a notable milestone; it didn’t feel like I had.

I wish that I could say that this occasion felt as meaningful as once I anticipated.

I am not alone in this apathy. Through speaking with peers it is clear that most young people share a detachment from voting. While most older people approach voting with an unbridled sense of excitement, we approach it jaded and almost begrudging. We vote because we know it is our duty and because peoples’ lives hang in the balance, not out of the enthusiasm to do so.

But why is this?

While many people suggest a growing sense of entitlement as the primary reason behind this phenomenon, this is not the case. The political climate that we have grown up in is the reason for this lack of enthusiasm. It is almost impossible to get excited to vote when every election in recent memory is more akin to a circus than the solemn democratic process it was intended to be.

We are constantly inundated with politics now and so much of it is rooted in absurdity. One candidate had a worm in his brain and dumped a dead bear in Central Park. One candidate is airing “pop the balloon” advertisements and appearing on Call Her Daddy. One candidate is so unhinged I don’t even want to discuss him.

These candidates often come off more like caricatures of politicians than actual people, only exacerbating the disconnect between them and voters. It is hard to muster the excitement to vote when each candidate feels like a “lesser evil” who lacks the seriousness that the position demands.

This is just one snapshot of the highly absurd, polarized and frankly demoralizing state of politics that my generation has grown up in. It has clearly put a damper on our enthusiasm to vote. I suspect that the excitement older generations retain for voting is a holdover from a time long-since passed. They are still able to associate voting with a simpler time, one less polarized and more sincere, when each of their candidates weren’t meme-able caricatures.

It feels like we are trapped in an era of politics that leaves us more disillusioned than inspired, and more apathetic than enthusiastic. Despite this, we will show up and vote, even if our enthusiasm is sadly absent.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life voting unenthusiastically; hopefully, one day this excitement to vote that many of us shared as children will return to us. My dad cries every time he votes. I want to be able to cry one day too.

@dthopinion | opinion@dailytarheel.com