Election Exhaustion

By: Bella Carbone 


With the 2024 presidential on the horizon, I can only sum up my feelings in a few (negative) adjectives. One of those would be tired and that is the emotion I would like to focus on.


For someone who is barely past voting age, some may think I would feel excited or at least that I have a civic duty to vote. As a feminist, I understand how the personal is political so abstaining from politics or choosing to be ignorant is not a viable option if I want to risk losing any more vital rights. 


The first time I voted in a presidential election was in 2020. Then, my vote felt crucial to an effort of ousting a leader who had zero respect for anything I stand for. I felt empowered by my right to vote, I felt like I had just a smidge of a say in the laws that would control my life. There was a sense of freedom in the ability to vote. I was not enthused about voting for Biden. In fact, that decision had felt like “a lesser of two evils” which was not an unusual sentiment felt during that election. 


However, this time around I just feel tired. I feel like I am swimming in a never ending wave pool and my feet can’t touch the ground. I’m tired of feeling trapped. I am tired of having old white men run our country practically from their nursing homes. I am tired of having to support men who promote the genocide of innocent human lives, who encourage unethical labor practices, who allocate power to capitalism at the expense of the most vulnerable, or who ignore the fact that our country is rooted in white supremacy thus, facilitating communal harm without ever providing assistance to victims.


I am also tired of how unfair and imbalanced our current voting systems are. Voting is extremely difficult with financial, language, and political barriers put into place that exacerbate the issue. 


Overall, I can sum up my overall attitude about this election and American politics as a whole with the phrase “election exhaustion” I am so damn sick of the way things are and I hope for the life of me they change.

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