Apathy Essay Research Paper What Is ApathyApathy — страница 3

out,” we voice our opinions on important issues. By participating in the political process, we fulfill our civic duty. By exerting our political power, we shape our government policies. The best way to get involved in our political process is to vote, so people have to get out there, get registered, and go vote in the next election. Voter apathy has lead to a dangerous situation in American politics. People have not listened to the issues and have therefore been left with candidates who seem to be all the same, only with different rhetoric and different levels of charisma. Most people when questioned about their vote related that they were more against Gore and the Clinton administration than they were for Bush, and the reasons were more over moral behavior than policy making.

The simple fact that during the past four years the country has experienced unprecedented economic growth, yet the incumbent administration was narrowly voted out, signals a public more concerned with the behavior of its leaders in the bedroom than their political policies. Bush represents the status-quo as much as Gore does, and the recent election really only revealed a public split between two candidates whose only difference seemed to be that one was aligned with his predecessor who had fallen from public moral grace. In order to have more clear-cut choices in candidates and over issues, there must be a movement in the United States to bring political education back into the classroom. An uninformed, politically uneducated public is a dangerous one because that public easily

becomes apathetic. Yet, it is the public that has allowed candidates steeped in rhetoric rather than issues to continue to hold office. This cycle is one that needs to be broken, and it is not going to be broken by those currently in office because they naturally want to keep the status quo going. It is the future voters, and voters from ages 18 to 30 who must start taking an active interest in our political system, become aware of the issues and the process, and care enough to see that voting intelligently can and will make a difference in our country s future.