In an attempt to motivate youth to get politically involved, Leonardo DiCaprio and friends made a YouTube video encouraging voter registration. The nearly 5-minute video goes on and on about the importance of registering and voting.

At first glance, you might think how nice it is to have celebrities get involved to communicate the importance of exercising our democratic right. But what frustrates the s**t out of me is how they simplify your vote as THE solution to the multitude of national problems.

Voting for a candidate does NOT guarantee results. Especially when each candidate has different plans on the same issues and remains wishy-washy on how they are going to execute said plans.

Now if American citizens could vote on the issues, then voting could make a huge difference. Or if Americans had more than just two viable choices, then voting might be extremely important. But since we have a representative democracy, we’re basically voting for someone who’s going to be doing what their advisors (i.e., lobbyists) tell them. After all, our candidates didn’t get to be our presidential choice without making back-room deals with the political elite.

Sure you should vote. But let’s not over-simplify that it will solve the country’s problems. Aside from my mother, I can assure you nobody who voted for Bush expected to see the decisions he made.

Karl Gromelski is a writer at sgdp who’s registered to vote and still remains uncommitted.

Article Tags: 5 friends | Forest Whitaker | leo dicaprio | register to vote | Tobey Maguire | vote | YouTube
Filed under: PSA, Personal Opinions, Political Marketing