Elections are November 6. That’s a few days from now. If you haven’t registered, there’s still time. There’s also time to figure out where to go to vote. There’s time to review the candidates and pick which ones you want to lead us. Now’s the time.

Recently, a friend shrugged when I encouraged her to register to vote and fit a trip to the polls into her busy Tuesday. Elections are this Tuesday, November 6, 2018. “I haven’t been affected by the current president,” she said.

“Are you sure?” I asked. I wondered how she hadn’t noticed the ways in which our leaders’ decisions were posed to shape American lives for generations. I wondered when we thought the only person we voted for was the president. I wondered about the apathy of the masses. I wondered when we had forgotten how much politics matter.

We don’t only vote for the president. We vote for the school budget and those who decide how our towns and cities and states should be run. We vote for congress men and women every 2 years and we vote for senators every 6 years…and those two groups make up the Legislative Branch. The Legislative Branch is important because it’s a counterweight, a check and a balance, to the Executive Branch (the president) and the Judicial Branch (the judges, picked by the president on the national level).

US democracy only works if you care about all 3 governmental branches because the 3 keep each other in check. US democracy only works if you care about federal, state, and local politics because they work with and against each other in a constant tug-of-war between different beliefs. When one fraction of the government is ignored by most voters, the voices of a few predominate, and those vocal individuals then make decisions for other people whose lives they don’t understand.

But, let me stop ranting. I have a few points that are more concise. A few issues to keep in mind. A few things I remember when elections come.

• What’s the price of gas these days? Did you know tariffs and trade agreements made by our politicians can lower the price of gas for the period leading up to elections?
• What is your voting district? Did you know district borders are drawn by politicians? The lines are often drawn to ensure the current party always wins.
• How do you feel about access to health care? For the elderly? For the poor? For those who have pre-existing conditions (those who are already sick)? Access to and education about birth control? Your politicians decide how hard it is to see a doctor and get the medications you need to feel well.
• What is love? Who are you allowed to marry? Who gets legal rights to visit a loved one as they lie dying in a hospital? Who can adopt children? Your politicians decide.
• Who’s protected by civil rights laws? Your politicians get to set legal definitions of things like gender, sex, and race. Did you know children used to not have protection under the law? They had fewer rights than animals. Politicians changed that—with pressure from lobbyists and people who thought it was wrong to beat children or make children work.
• Where and when do we go to war? How to we care for veterans? Who do we allow to join the armed forces? Your politicians set those guidelines. What are we doing in Iraq and Afghanistan now? What are American soldiers doing in Syria? Are we going to attack Russia or China? It’s your government that makes those decisions.
• Are billboards allowed? Billboards are illegal in Vermont, thanks to local politics. Vermont depends on tourism…so were billboards banned for economic reasons or was it because some politicians thought billboards were ugly?

The above are just the beginning. There are so many other things that depend on politics. The price of food, for example. The minimum wage. Life is a complex web. Claim: our immigration policies influence the price of oranges…can you puzzle out why?

The thing about politics is that it permeates life in subtle ways. In the US, we are lucky because political decisions don’t often lead to obvious shortages of essentials or the disappearance of dissenters (we don’t have camps where we hold people prisoner, or do we?). It’s naïve to believe that everything from our wallets to privacy or marriage to jail terms are not shaped by the decisions our legislators, judges, and political leaders make.

My point is simply that your opinion matters. Make yourself heard and go vote. Take part in democracy. Be a citizen of the US and go vote. Go vote because it’s what you should do. Go vote because it’s what others are doing. Go vote because you can. Go vote because your country needs you to vote. Go vote.