We make myriad decisions by ourselves and for ourselves every day. “Do I hit the snooze button one more time?” “What will I wear today?” Sometimes our choices are far more consequential. Will I tell the truth when lying would be easier? Will I honor a commitment when breaking it would give me something I want?
Our choices reveal what matters most to us, especially when doing what we believe is right comes at a personal cost.
Voting brings that question into our shared life. Whether we are choosing a movie with friends, deciding how to spend shared resources in a marriage, or electing someone to represent us, we are participating in a decision with consequences that extend beyond ourselves.
That asks something of us. How much weight will we give our own preferences and potential benefits? How much will we consider the well-being of others, including people whose lives and needs are very different from our own?
We do not need to stop caring about ourselves to care about one another. But I believe we have a responsibility to look beyond what we stand to gain personally.
I find myself disheartened by how readily we can excuse conduct that violates our own values when it benefits our side. I believe we diminish the responsibility of voting whenever we treat honesty and fairness as expendable in the pursuit of victory. That means asking ourselves whether we are willing to uphold honesty and fairness even when doing so costs our side an advantage. Ask yourself:
- Would I accept district boundaries drawn to benefit a political party if they disadvantaged the party I support?
- Am I willing to excuse deliberate dishonesty by candidates, parties, or news outlets when it serves my preferred outcome?
- What limits on campaign fundraising would I support even if they reduced my preferred candidate’s advantage?
- When a candidate breaks a campaign promise, do I examine the reasons, or simply excuse or condemn the failure according to whose side they are on?
- Do I believe winning justifies abandoning fair play? If so, what am I willing to permit, and why?
For me, voting is a sacred social responsibility. It asks us to consider what kind of shared life we are helping to create and what we are willing to endorse in order to get what we want.
I want us to ask more of those who seek to represent us, and more of ourselves. Are we choosing representatives whose conduct reflects the values we want practiced in public life? Will we hold to those values when doing so might cost us a victory?
Winning becomes a shallow goal when we disregard the price paid by others.
My hope is that our disgust with corruption will become a determination to withdraw our support from it, including when confronting it costs us an advantage. Anger can bring us to that threshold. Conscience must guide what we do next.
Before we cast our vote, perhaps the most consequential question we can ask is this:
What am I willing to excuse in order to get what I want, and can I live with what that makes me responsible for?
