I wanted to get you guys this column last Friday, but for the second consecutive road trip, the last night was sleepless. This time, unfortunately, I wasn’t up partying all night like I was at the RNC with the “Republican National Committee dancers”, but instead on MSNBC’s Hardball at nearly 2 a.m., partying on a more cerebral plane. Either way, I’m quickly learning that the later I stay up, the crazier the things I hear myself saying.
Last week, the Smackdown Your Vote! crew took over sunny, nearly hurricane-ravaged Miami University, home of the Hurricanes (talk about a heel mascot!), to put on a youth debate that made the presidential debate look like two kids running for class treasurer.
You may have heard the criticism in the week leading up to the Bush-Kerry debate concerning the fact that because of the candidates’ mandatory contractual stipulations, their forum was more similar to two simultaneous press conferences rather than an actual exchange of ideas and criticism. We at the WWE concur, and avoided all that rubbish with a “no fear” format at our inaugural Smackdown Your Vote! Youth Debate that can be viewed in its entirety at www.wwe.com.
It was a legendary evening. On Wednesday night, 24 hours before the presidential farce, in front of a capacity crowd at U of M’s Gusman Concert Hall, Mick Foley, JBL, University of Miami students Alex Acosta and Tiffany Yelder, along with Florida state senator David Aronberg (Harvard grad) and Florida state representative Marcelo Llorentes, created a dialogue on youth issues the likes of which had yet to be seen this election year.
As a highly educated concerned citizen with attention deficit problems, I was spellbound for the full 90 minutes by the depth of knowledge of our debaters, and the passion with which they shared their ideas. Our goal at the outset was to address how well the four responses from presidential candidates we’ve received to the Smackdown Your Vote! 18-30 Voter Issues Paper (Bush, Kerry, Nader, Badnarik) addressed the major issues important to young voters.
I was personally worried that with partisan officials and with every debater having a specific political ‘slant’, our debate would collapse into the usual partisan rhetoric that threatens to overwhelm our capacity for individual thought and analysis. Our debaters, though, were able to rise above that dumbed-down dialogue, and the most memorable moments came when the debaters discussed the issues that none of the candidates were addressing well.
Instead of closing with a partisan, issue-based attack, Alex Acosta essentially asked the candidates, “What are any of the candidates going to do that will inspire and organize young people to give back to America?” Without trying to put words in his mouth (you can hear his own words on the webcast), I thought he was making the brilliant observation that the vast majority of young people in this country already volunteer in their community, and, as I see every day on the SDYV tour, are more ready than ever to be asked to sacrifice for their country. Yet the presidential candidates are doing nothing to capitalize on that, and may even be hurting it with the current depressing “he said, she said,” rhetoric that dominates the airwaves.
Neither major candidate is engaging us with a vision for the future of this country; we know we can’t “have it all” without hard work and sacrifice, but that’s the message we’re being fed. No one is asking us to lower our dependency on foreign sources of oil. No one is asking us to try to travel more and study the lives of nearly 6 billion people who aren’t lucky enough to be Americans in order to foster greater global understanding. No one is asking us to organize and help support the families of our fighting soldiers while they are off defending our country. Alex knows young people are begging for some inspiration and direction, and it’s up to the candidates to capitalize on it.
Mick Foley gave a great closing speech focusing on the dangers of the current administration, and any administration in a democracy, punishing those that have dissenting opinions. He named names, including the cases of General Eric Shinseki, who was “retired” for his dissent over criticism of strategic choices in the Iraq war, and Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had his CIA spy wife’s life put in danger by someone leaking her identity to the press to get back at him for publishing a dissenting op-ed concerning Iraq’s attempts to acquire nuclear materials.
After that speech, I was distinctly more aware of the restrictions the two-party system has placed on the public dialogue. Why was it that Jim Lehrer, the moderator of the presidential debate, was the first person to get both candidates on the record concerning their policy on the genocide now occurring in Africa? How can we be considered the world’s moral policemen if we don’t even discuss these issues publicly?
Who is the gatekeeper to the issues that young people want heard, but neither Kerry nor Bush wants to talk about? During the presidential debate, we were hosting a party with Rock the Vote and I found myself sitting 10 feet away from Ralph Nader. I thought, “Why is the third strongest voice in this dialogue sitting 10 feet away from me in the U of M cafeteria during the debate?” I watched him scrupulously writing notes during parts of the debate – often during the same parts where I was thinking, “Neither candidate represents my opinion on this issue, and neither is being entirely forthright. Boy, I wish someone would call them on it.”
But my wishes went unanswered. As an advocate for an underrepresented youth voting bloc, this week I learned there are two important features that our current democracy is lacking, but that young people want and that young people know is best for our country: more voices and more respect for unpopular opinions. We had that at the Smackdown Your Vote! Youth Debate, and that’s why I was proud to be a part of it.
Return to Commentaries