They are ubiquitous in their footstamping about turning out the youth vote, even teaming up with the World Wrestling Federation to get the vital constituency of wrestling fans at the polls. We hear this bunk constantly from fawning politicians, cloying activists, asinine actors, and an array of people who drink clever coffees. When I had my hernia operation, my doctor told me that when I was better I'd be able to lift heavy luggage. The reality is that I had no business lifting The Collected Wisdom of Alec Baldwin , let alone anything even remotely heavy. I am not being undemocratic, I am being an adult.
Voting is something people do when they take politics seriously.
It is the end of a process of civic engagement, not the beginning. Voting for its own sake is civic engagement on the cheap. Having professional wrestlers exhort young people to vote for the sake of voting does not enrich our Republic, it diminishes it. And you know, perhaps young people don't vote because they know something their leadership doesn't. Perhaps they're smarter than the hand-wringers realize.