“What does it matter if I vote?”

“Who really cares about political endorsements, anyway?”

“Who wants to be a battleground state? I wish Michigan were deep red instead.”

I hear variations of these questions regularly. My initial instinct—and yours too, probably—is to be annoyed by this. It’s loser talk. Shells from the peanut gallery. Cowardly and unworthy. 

But now I see that these conversations are an opportunity. Look beyond the surface and you’ll see that these are not the questions of a cynic. Not really. 

These are your neighbors crying out, hoping you’ll tell them something to make them believe their vote matters. 

I’m here to tell you just that. Your vote does matter, and if you live in Michigan, it really matters.

No less than Nate Silver notes that if Donald Trump wins Michigan, he has a 95% chance of winning the entire presidential election. The Trump motorcade is spending so much time here that it’s damn near outfitted in blue-and-yellow Water Wonderland license plates. 

Whether you watch football, news, or reality TV, your commercial breaks this fall will be dominated by political ads. They already are. You’ll hear terrible things about people you like. You’ll hear glowing reports about people you can’t stand. It’s the silly season of politics. Are you not entertained?

If cynicism is about Asking The Question—and patting oneself on the back for it—the antidote is skepticism. This involves reading the signals. You think they’re spending all that money and time because your vote doesn’t matter? You think Elissa Slotkin and Mike Rogers went hat-in-hand to the Michigan Farm Bureau because its endorsement doesn’t matter? Get serious.

People adopt the hard shell of a cynic, because they’ve been hurt before. Something was said or done, some race was lost or won, that disillusioned them. They may even think something was stolen. 

Some are in the worst of all worlds. They think the blue team’s votes count for double, and their vote doesn’t count at all. The people who’ve whipped them into an outrage offer no answers. Just promo codes to buy their pillows and mugs.

If holding a grudge is drinking poison and hoping the other person will die, political cynicism is not voting and thinking the other team will lose. It makes no sense. 

Everything you’ve earned in life took work. Yet, in this one realm, you want to be assured of success before you try. But that’s not how life works, and it’s not how you found success. 

Can we vote our way out of this? You better hope so. 

And if you’re too lazy to vote, spare me any worried talk of globalist plots or civil war. You don’t mean it.

Unless the civil war is fought in your living room, you won’t show up for that either.

James David Dickson is host of the Enjoyer Podcast. Join him in conversation on X @downi75.