Why Your Choice To Be ‘Apolitical’ Is Inherently Political

Olivia Garrett/Fulton Sun

Today, it’s alarmingly common to hear people assert that they consider themselves ‘apolitical’. Those who define themselves as apolitical choose not to adopt a particular political stance, participate meaningfully in political processes such as elections, or participate in public discourse about politics. While this might sound ridiculous coming from a teenager so engaged in politics that they write political articles in their spare time, I get it. Politics can be exhausting, frustrating, disappointing, disenchanting, and, at times, heartbreaking. It’s easy to believe that politics is pointless when we’re caught up in ceaseless election cycles, news streams, and debates but feel like we’re making no progress. However, feeling disappointed in politics should not be a reason to distance ourselves from politics entirely. In fact, feeling disappointed in politics is the very reason why we must involve ourselves in politics more.

Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that despite the fact a huge 1 in 10 Americans consider themselves apolitical, being apolitical is actually impossible because political choices are unavoidable. Even being apolitical is a political choice because the choice to be apolitical is merely the choice to accept the status quo. By accepting politics as it is, you are accepting the fact that 111 Black Americans have been killed by the police this year. By accepting politics as it is, you are accepting that 736 million people live in poverty while 2153 billionaires have more wealth between them than 60% of the world’s population. By being politically neutral, you are making the active choice to accept injustice. In America’s 2016 presidential election, it was not the people who voted who tipped the election, but rather the people who didn’t. With 60.5 million people voting for Clinton and 60 million votings for Trump, the power of the electoral college combined with the small popular vote margins ultimately led to Trump’s election. However, if some of the over 100 million eligible voters who didn’t vote had participated in the election, the result could have been drastically different. Ironically, those who chose to be politically neutral were some of the most influential in the election result. Thus, politically neutrality cannot actually exist, because the choice to be ‘apolitical’ is a political choice.

Additionally, choosing to accept the status quo is a choice entrenched in privilege. If you have the freedom to choose to be apolitical, you are one of the lucky few whose livelihoods, rights and lives don’t depend on political decisions. For many people, politics pervades every aspect of their lives, from whether they will be able to afford to feed their family to whether they can live without fear for their life. In fact, having your rights guaranteed without the need to fight for them is a privilege in itself. However, if you are in a position of such immense privilege that political decisions do not have monumental impacts on your life, you have a moral responsibility to use your privilege to further the rights of others. You have a responsibility to fight for the people who don’t have the option of being apolitical. If being a decent human being and fighting for the rights of others isn’t motivation enough, remember that being political also protects the rights you take for granted. By being apolitical, you leave your rights potentially vulnerable by giving politicians the freedom to make any decision without protest. Consequently, being ‘apolitical’ is not only a privilege, but it is also a choice not to protect the rights of other human beings, and even to forfeit your own rights.

Moreover, if your motivation for being apolitical is disillusionment with politics, this is all the more reason to become actively political. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by politics or feel like politicians don’t actually represent people like you, but if you want to feel better represented by politicians, it is imperative that you use your vote, values, and your voice to rally for political change. I know that sometimes it feels pointless to become involved with politics because change doesn’t happen overnight. All too often, we’ve seen that change can take years, decades, and even centuries. However, it is for this very reason that widespread political participation is so important; if we want to see tangible political progress, we need to fight for progress. As well as this, being political doesn’t have to be confined to cheering for politicians. If party politics feels inaccessible or unappealing, why not involve yourself in grassroots political movements about issues that you care about? Today, ‘being political’ is more accessible than ever with technological resources at our fingertips to educate ourselves about political issues, new mechanisms for political campaigning, and more political power available to us than ever before. For the sake of the people who have fought for us to have such power, for the sake of each other and for the sake of ourselves, we must use it. Being ‘apolitical’ means accepting the status quo, and this acceptance of injustice is inherently political.