When I was in kindergarten, my parents were excited by a third party candidate for president. I knew his name and the names of the two most likely to win. I even knew which of them was preferable. The preferable one won. My parents’ favorite finished fourth. I learned a lesson, even then, about picking the best you can actually get.
When I was in fifth grade, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to reverse separate but equal schools. For the next nearly three decades the same court ruled consistently to expand civil and voting rights and to protect the rights of minority religions to be left alone. The rights of individuals to make their own decisions, reproductive and other, were expanded. People who were abused by the majority in society could count on the Court to protect them against tyranny of the majority.
My first vote was as a college senior (21 was the minimum for voting then). I voted for a president who advanced civil rights, voting rights and economic rights for the elderly and poor. He also got us into a terrible war. I learned that no candidate for any office is perfect or totally predictable because they have to react to the unexpected.
Four years later, the war was the central issue. Many people thought the anti-war candidate wasn’t anti-war enough and didn’t vote. The other had a “secret plan” to end the war, but he had no plan, and tens of thousands more American soldiers died over the next several years.
A few years after the war ended, the Court started to change. “Conservative” justices were appointed with the goal of reversing all the protections of the previous decades. Whether it was treating corporations as people, intruding on personal privacy or declaring that racial restrictions on voting were in the past, the Court became more ideological. Some justices have allowed their judgment to be fogged by their “Conservative” ideology, although they have insisted they are the true Constitutionalists.
I’ve described two eras of the Supreme Court, each about three decades. We are at the point now at which the next president’s appointments will set the direction for the next three decades. This election isn’t about the pleasure of choosing the perfect candidate. I’ve never voted for a perfect candidate. If I can find one I agree with 80 percent of the time, that’s great. 60 percent is still much better than never.
The year my son graduated from college, the choice for President came down to 537 votes in one state. Nearly 100,000 people thought it wouldn’t hurt to vote for the “perfect” candidate. If that state had gone the other way, today’s young voters would have grown up knowing a different President. Would he have invaded Iraq? Would he have brought the economy to near destruction eight years ago? Would he have appointed justices who were in the majority for Citizens United and voting rights evisceration?
Millennials, you are making a decision this year for your adult children. Don’t make them ask you in three decades why you allowed the Supreme Court to become what it became. Even if a candidate isn’t perfect, think about the big picture. Think about your lives, not for four years, but for 30. Think about your children you don’t even have yet. Is insisting on “perfect” worth electing the risk? Don’t throw your vote away.
Michael Schaul
