With midterm elections coming up on the 8th of November this year, around 35 of the 100 senate seats and all 435 house seat positions are becoming available for election. It is important that young men and women know who and what they are voting for in addition to what it could imply for the future of our country.  However, whenever politics comes up in conversations people either have a lot to say, or nothing to say at all. With students now being old enough to enter the voting pool, their opinions on such things will begin to matter far more than before. 

The students here at TAMUT didn’t seem particularly fond of talking about politics, some students embracing the old adage “In polite company, you should never discuss politics and religion.” Those who were willing to speak however, didn’t seem to know that the midterm elections even existed. “Midterms? Oh I’m done with those. Wait, you mean like, voting midterms? Those are a thing?” Said one Male computer science major, age 20.  

There also seemed to be a bit of uncomfortable air when speaking on the subject. Like giving the wrong answer would make you look bad or cause some sort of consequence. “I don’t know much about the midterms, but I’d rather not even talk about politics. There’s a very high chance that I could lose all my friends and even some family if I told them who I wanted to vote for,” Said one Male Nursing student, age 19. 

With the exception of the previous two cases many other students refused to speak on the subject, either because they weren’t knowledgeable on the topic or because they simply just didn’t care. And why would they care at this point in their lives? Many have more pressing concerns such as passing their own individual midterms in their classes and working jobs if they have them. This leaves little room to do research on the midterm elections, especially when the midterms aren’t advertised as frequently or given as much weight as the Presidential elections seem to be given. And with how much research one would have to do to understand all of the 400+ open positions, what each of them means, who is running, and what those people each promises to do, it’s quite daunting. The average young person would simply rather not bother than look into it.

The faculty and older generation seem to be a bit more relaxed when talking about subjects such as this, although more relaxed does not equal comfortable. There was still a bit of tip toe-ing around the subject matter whenever discussing these topics, and in the end it boiled down to “Do what you think is best for the country, however consider the consequences for not just yourself, but for others as well,” which is good general advise, but it is vague and doesn’t get to the root of our problems.

Politics seems to be quite the touchy subject on campus, and with all of these negative connotations combined with the fact that students don’t seem to know much about the subject in the first place. It’s a brew that could be potentially very bad for the political future if it’s something that continues past this stage in life.