Letter to the Editor: Cast your vote for the right reasons

Here we are about a week or so away from the election and if you haven’t already voted, you surely know who you are voting for, so attempting to change voters’ minds at this point is most likely a waste of time and money.

It’s become obvious that the driving issue for too many voters is not the economy or immigration, or women’s health rights, it is personality and hate for anyone who doesn’t fall in line with one party’s ideology.

We’ve been living for decades now in a bubble of social media, reality TV shows, and non-stop cable news networks that fill our minds all day long with angry, combative, and sometimes hate-filled rants about how evil certain people are or how dangerous any given political party is. And since we are creatures who love to be entertained, we seem to be drawn to the most outrageous, norm-busting characters we can find. Of course, no one will admit this, maybe they don’t even realize it themselves, so they use the old “I like (or don’t like) their policies, that’s why I’m sticking with this candidate no matter what” excuse to justify their support for their candidate.

It seems people have been conditioned by the media and the wasteland that is the internet to believe, true or not, whatever those folks want them to believe about these candidates. Some voters base their opinions on the actual words and actions of the candidates. Others get all their information from third-hand sources and never bother to check whether any of what they have learned is or isn’t true.

So vote if you haven’t already. But please make sure your vote is cast for the correct reasons and not because someone you don’t even know told you how to vote.

John Moore

Newton