Does Voting Matter?
“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”
In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by nearly 10%. The electoral college decided that John Quincy Adams(JQA) deserved the seat more so they gave their votes to him. This was the first time in our young nation’s history where the people didn’t choose their leader. Was Jackson the right pick? Was JQA? Ultimately it doesn’t matter because just the next term, Jackson beat JQA with nearly the same electoral college margin. There have only been a handful of times where this has happened in US history but the fact that the will of the people can be ignored should be appalling to all who claim to be free. If the government is supposed to work for the people, why should there be a system designed to be able to do the opposite?
On January 30th, 2026, the Department of Justice released the largest drop of the Epstein Files. In the days and weeks that followed, the entire world learned of a deeply ingrained evil within not just American politics but truly an international cabal of the most powerful. These people come from all political backgrounds and control high levels of government and business; Clinton, Trump, Netanyahu, Chomsky. All complicit in these crimes. A system that tells us we’re free yet is coordinating efforts to abuse the most vulnerable in any community is not free. Oligarchy is defined as “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes”. Many who oppose the MAGA movement have begun calling the government an oligarchy. How can we expect our votes to matter if they all are clearly in cahoots, working for billionaires?
Is all this to say that voting doesn’t matter? Of course not. In 2025 we saw what mobilizing communities can do. A “blue wave” swept the nation on the local and state level. Mamdani in New York showed us that addressing real, everyday issues matters more to voters than taxes and diplomacy. Kelsea Bond, Jorge DeFendini, and Hannah Shvets showed that even in small elections, socialists can win. Voting is one, tiny, way we can elicit change. What we do in the years between tends to matter more. These campaigns only won because they took time and walked among their communities. They showed the people that they’re one of them. Democracts and Republicans alike spend most of their energy on listening to their funders and debating issues that the common people generally don’t care about. Instead of “lesser of two evils” voting, shouldn’t we support people who just aren’t evil?