{"id":38063,"date":"2021-10-24T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T10:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=38063"},"modified":"2021-10-20T14:42:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T18:42:36","slug":"dont-let-anyone-tell-you-differently-your-vote-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=38063","title":{"rendered":"Don’t let anyone tell you differently, your vote matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There\u2019s a temptation to throw up one\u2019s arms and say \u201cit is hopeless. There is nothing I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

I fear a lot of people may have that point of view when it comes to voting on Nov. 2. Fatigued from so much bad news, frustration and acting out by a small number of people, I understand why people would just want to ignore all of this, watch Netflix and try not to think about any of it anymore.<\/p>\n

And that is what some people, cynically, are hoping will happen. The hope is the crazed partisan division (yes, largely driven by one side \u2014 and funded by dark money) will cause people to tune out and skip voting.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all frustrated and want our pre-COVID lives back. Every time it seems like things will get better, we see a setback \u2014 like this summer\u2019s Delta variant wave \u2014 and it seems like there is little we individually can do to change things and make them better.<\/p>\n

And yes, there is too much corrupt money in politics \u2014 that goes for both parties. Honestly, sometimes it feels like most of our elected officials are bought and paid for and don\u2019t much care what we actually think. While not entirely true \u2014 there are some elected officials who are in office to try to do good \u2014 it is understandable that some folks might see voting as a pointless endeavor.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Change starts with you. Change starts with those elected officials closest to you \u2014 municipal government and school boards.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t vote, you lose having your say into those who may have the most direct impact on your life and that of your family. You probably have a mail in ballot sitting around \u2014 I\u2019m here to say that you need to fill it in and drop it off.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Your voice really can make a difference.<\/p>\n

Consider school boards. You may have heard the lunatic parents protesting mask wearing (citing all sorts of bogus \u201cscience\u201d) and those (including an entirely morally corrupt county GOP party) falsely claiming that public schools are teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT).<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all seen the irrational, rude and ignorant behavior at school board meetings. We\u2019ve seen the outright lies of some running for school board.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t think for one second, though, that this is some grass-roots movement. It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Big, dark money is pushing this narrative with one big goal: ending free public education as we know it.<\/p>\n

All this false outrage over masks and CRT is part of long term play by folks like former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Charles Koch to convert our public schools into for-profit charter schools.<\/p>\n

We know charters on average educate our kids less well than public schools, cost more per student and have no public oversight \u2014 like a school board \u2014 despite spending our tax money. It is literal \u201ctaxation without representation.\u201d<\/p>\n

These greedy billionaires want to convert as much public service to private as possible \u2014 not for better outcomes, but to get a piece of the action and pad already bloated corporate profits.<\/p>\n

Businesses are not more efficient than government, despite more than a generation of claims to the otherwise.<\/p>\n

Compare private medical insurance to Medicare: Medicare only needs about a 6% overhead to operate, while private insurance runs up to 20%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It used to be even worse before the Affordable Care Act\u00a0 <\/span>(ACA) meant insurance companies had to spend 80% of premiums on medical costs, instead just pumping up CEO pay and running endless commercials. Some of you may have gotten a check recently from Independence Blue Cross because the company failed to meet its legal requirement and had to issue refunds under the ACA.<\/p>\n

Or, particularly of note as the Chester Water Authority is potentially being sold, every time a municipal water authority has been sold to private firm, water rates have gone up and arguably service has gotten worse. Ask people in Coatesville.<\/p>\n

Privatization has largely been a loser for the American taxpayer, but it is a trend that will continue if folks give up and stop voting.<\/p>\n

Your vote matters, each and every one of them. It decides who runs your municipality, who educates your kids, who manages your county and the level of your property tax rates.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let anyone tell you that voting doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 the biggest leaps forward by the country have been spurred by millions of people standing up and saying, \u201cno, this is what I want\u201d when leaders go off the rails.<\/p>\n

Whether it is by mail or you make it to the polls on Nov. 2, vote like your life depends on it.<\/p>\n

Because, if you think about it, it does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa There\u2019s a temptation to throw up one\u2019s arms and say \u201cit is hopeless. There is nothing I can do.\u201d I fear a lot of people may have that point of view when it comes to voting on Nov. 2. Fatigued from so much bad news, frustration and acting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12688,6518,12370,135,1398],"class_list":["post-38063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-election-2021","tag-featured","tag-school-boards","tag-taxes","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38064,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38063\/revisions\/38064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}