Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
Election Day is right around the corner. Finally. We’ve been pummeled by television ads, social media blitzes, and unending email blasts for over two years. We’ve heard candidates call each other liars, losers, and criminals accuse each other of being incompetent, weak, or crazy. We’ve seen a flood of debates, town halls, interviews, and political rallies. We’ve had enough of the (mis)information blitz, mailbox fliers, and text messages from Trump, Harris, and their surrogates—and wannabe senators, representatives, governors, and dogcatchers from states all across the country. “Please, just five dollars will ensure victory for our Arizona candidate!!” (I live in Wisconsin.) But it will soon be over. Thank God.
The American election process is exhausting. And, frankly, it’s a mess. It doesn’t have to be. Campaign cycles here last for years instead of months or even weeks as elections in other countries do. It’s a bottomless money pit that is presently being coopted by the very rich. The Citizens United ruling opened the door for corporate and independent funding of political campaigns. Megadonors like billionaires Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, and other have made contributions in the millions of dollars, raising questions about whether these gifts are transactional. It is hard to believe that donors would give this kind of money without expecting anything in return.
Social media has opened another electoral Pandora’s box. Solicitations and misinformation, ubiquitous emails, and text messages pleading for five, ten, or twenty-five dollars appear in my—and millions of other voters’—inbox every day. Because it works. The Harris campaign has raised over one billion dollars, much of it from the never-ending small donor solicitations. And some of the wild stories and conspiracy theories circulated on TikTok and X, like cats and dogs being eaten in Ohio, are simply preposterous.
But beyond the attack ads, the name-calling, the fearmongering, the anger, the dark money, the divisiveness, the constant nagging, and the acerbic rhetoric, there is the forgotten cog in this machine, the voter, the backbone of our democracy.
My wife and I decided to cast our ballots during the first day of early voting last week. We drove down to the Ziedler Municipal Center and got into the longish line. It was a pleasant fall day. There was a fair amount of people in business dress, probably taking an hour or so off work to vote, as well as a good number of senior citizens, probably retirees, but there were quite a few young people there, too. Men and women seemed to be equally represented, as were a number of ethnicities. In short, the line looked like a cross-section of Milwaukee. There was also an energy, a vibrancy in the crowd, sort of an expectancy. This was not just people performing their civic duty. They were on a mission.
One guy on his way out kindly mentioned that it to us was against the rules to wear campaign buttons on our jackets (which we had forgotten about), so we struck our colors. An older couple in front of us took turns sitting on the stone terrace while the other held their place in line, letting the other get off their feet for a minute. I happened to notice a good friend of mine, a former political consultant, join the line. We exchanged pleasantries and then chatted about his recent travels (to 10 Downing Street, no less) and exchanged opinions on some recent books and movies.
I then happened to strike up a conversation with another gentleman named Steve standing directly in front of me. It turned out that he was retired musician who had worked with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. When he learned my father had also been a member of the orchestra under Harry John Brown, we compared possible mutual acquaintances and experiences between him and my father without much success. It turned out that he joined the symphony the year after my father passed away, but he did remember Music Under the Stars, an outdoor concert series in Milwaukee’s Washington Park and the Melody Top, a venue for traveling Broadway musicals. I told him about a reminiscence my dad had written about the many talents of Julie Newmar, who had been a member of one of the touring musical companies.
It came up that Steve wasn’t originally from around here—he still has a pretty thick New York City accent—and he told me had grown up in the Bronx, just a few blocks away from Yankee Stadium, and was, of course, a huge Yankees fan. He told me about when he was a kid getting out of school and walking down to the stadium where, at the time, games would usually be in the seventh or eighth inning. He said the ushers would usually wave him in his friends in for the remainder of the game, a great way to create lifelong Yankees fans.
We also spoke about how players back in the day were a lot more accessible to their fans. I mentioned a friend who grew up next to Braves infielder Eddie Matthews in West Allis, a suburb composed of mostly modest ranch homes. He said Eddie was pretty much of a normal guy who even had to find winter work once the season was over. Steve talked about meeting players after the game and told a great story about pitcher Vic Raschi tutored a young girl who was a pitcher on her high school baseball team.
We talked until it was time to vote. Not only was this conversation entertaining, but it provided a window into not only a different time, but a different aspect of the American experience. Here was a classical musician who had grown up next to Yankee Stadium and who had rubbed elbows with some of the all-time greats. He and my father had shared mutual acquaintances and probably mutual experiences. Then it was my turn to vote.
As I glanced around me at the dozens of other people preparing to vote, it occurred to me that every person there, like Steve, had unique life experiences. We all came from different places, different times, and different circumstances, but we were still bound by many of the same ideals and values. Most of us had grown up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in our respective public schools. Most of had experienced the common trauma of 9/11; some even recalled the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. Some had served in Vietnam, and some had protested against that war.
But our commonalities, which had brought us to this polling site in the first place, were our belief in democracy and the power of our voice. We were there to vote. We all believed—and believe—in America, warts and all. Standing in line, talking to old friends and new acquaintances, stripped the election process down to its bare bones. There was no media blitz, no begging for donations, no animosity, and no venomous rhetoric. There were only ordinary everyday people who want to preserve or improve the country they grew up in, who want their children to live in a country where they be safe, happy, and prosperous—by choice. Our choice. The people’s choice.