Detroit (and we’ll use the most inclusive form of that for the purposes of this post) is kind of at a crossroads. And you should be involved. According to what the Facebook and our analytics tells us, as well as who we run into at places like My Dad’s Bar (HI! Really appreciated that random hug from someone who reads us while we were out the other night) our audience is overwhelmingly from the ages of 25-35, and our core team that is Daily Detroit is right there with you (and yes, we have some older occasional contributors as well).
Detroit right now is a dichotomy. We have shiny new developments and progress in pockets in one hand and we also have some sobering facts that show us we have a long way to go as a city and region. We have intense poverty sitting right next to amazing opportunity. And to be clear, we’re not just talking about the city proper here. You, through voting, can help shape our future of that because it’s all linked together.
Our age group (and to be fair, most people in the US) have a pretty weak track record of being involved in elections. However, elections are important because who’s in charge in our government does matter. Whether it’s regulations, zoning, incentives for development, parking ticket rates, rules around graffiti, how close bars can be to each other… they’re often in some way tied or collaborated with your local or state government.
Here’s a “for instance.” A portion of audience tells us all the time they want regional mass transit in notes, comments, whatever. Our lack of a real mass transit system currently sucks and is a disincentive for young people to live in our region. What if just a quarter of them (which would be something like 27,000 people this month) decided they really wanted to show up in various ways and make that happen? People would listen. Media would cover them. And there’s a good chance it would move forward a lot faster, and you could do like other cities and take a train or rapid bus all the way down a major road, like Woodward in our case.
We have to remember that both the Koch Brothers on the right and George Soros on the left, no matter how much money they have, get only one vote per person just like us, and that government is supposed to work for us. We’re in charge, but in practice that happens only if we decide to be involved.
Here’s the deal. We aren’t going to tell you who to vote for. But we are going to do is say: Vote on Tuesday. Your voice matters. If you’re not sure who to vote for, there are some cool resources out there. You can do this in three simple steps.
First, are you registered? Hit this up.
Second, not sure who to vote for? Go play on iSideWith.com to get a starting point (we’ve linked to the Michigan voting guide). Here are endorsements from the major papers … The Freep tends to lean toward the Democratic party, and the News leans toward the Republicans when it comes to their opinion pages. Both sides are worth hearing. For Governor, here is their debate if you really want to dive in. Also, political ads are useless for making a reasoned decision. Political ads generally are soul-sucking 30 second pieces of misiniformative trash, playing on tropes and scare tactics. They seem to work, but we can be better than that if we choose to.
Third, VOTE ON TUESDAY! Find your polling place here.
Above, we’ve included a video from the ever-interesting Vlogbrothers on 10 Ten Terrible Reason To Not Vote (And Two Good Ones). Hank Green will dispel some myths you might have about the process, including why you should vote even if you think you’re selecting between the lesser of two evils.
See you at the polls on Tuesday.
