Barbara Mezeske: Are you a values voter? Why it might be time to rethink what that really means.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

What determines how you vote? Many of us look at the candidates and hope to find ways in which their values and our own intersect. We want peace, safety, freedom from fear and want, the ability to prosper and create. We want happiness not only for ourselves, but for our neighbors. We want people we can trust to uphold law and order. We want robust educational opportunities for our children. We want cutting-edge science to inform our decisions about our bodies and our world.

And yet, on the eve of this midterm election, increasing numbers of citizens feel disillusioned, despairing or disgusted by the way our government is behaving.

How did we get here? By confusing values with policies. We have accepted at face value statements affirming “values” we all hold. Consider this popular West Michigan campaign slogan: Freedom, Faith, Family. Each word names something positive, something we can all agree is a good thing. Politicians and their propaganda machines have mastered the language of values. What they have not mastered is operationalizing those values. People we elected practice those values in ways that actually contradict the words’ meanings.

Freedom of the press is a core American value. But not when the press asks questions those in power don’t want to answer: The Epstein files; the way corrupt leaders manipulate stock markets and rake in wealth; how we treat Ukraine. Consolidating press outlets into monopolies favorable to those in power, restricting access to government leadership, name-calling and physically attacking reporters — all of this is the antithesis of freedom of the press.

Another example: immigration. It’s in the nation’s interest to have fair and effective immigration policies. Screening out violent or criminal people is good for all of us.

At the same time, having low-cost immigrant labor perform farm, construction, and health care work is built into our economy. But in practice, people with brown or black skin are scooped up on the streets while going about their business. We stash people in concentration camps, without giving them due process, access to legal representation, or contact with their families. Many of these people have a legal right to be here: They are going through the immigration process. Some are citizens.

Nevertheless, armed, masked government agents can stop, harass, and disappear these people — often in violent ways. Our concentration camps are appalling: sanitation, food, and health care are worse than in some of our prisons. Is this a productive way to address immigration? Does protecting our borders have to mean policies that result in the separation of families, in denial of due process, in outright cruelty? What do our concentration camps say about our values?

A strong economy is a good thing, until you ask WHO the economy is strong FOR. Right now, it’s for large corporations, billionaires, tech companies, and the military-industrial complex. It’s much different for individuals who are struggling to pay their bills, fill their tanks, and put decent food on the table. The top 10% of Americans control over 68% of the country's total net worth. How long can economic inequality persist before the economy breaks down?

A clean environment is essential to life. For decades, we have understood that fossil fuels are running out and polluting our air, water, and soil. Why are wind and solar power facing uphill battles in Washington? Why are environmental safeguards being dismantled? Why are we suddenly threatening to “develop” wild and park lands, or to cease protecting endangered species? Are these policies moving us in the right or the wrong direction?

Family is, for many of us, the bedrock of our security and happiness. That is, unless your family is different. Single parenthood comes with difficulties such as child care, after-school care and a job market that supports flexible hours. Gender and sexual self-expression don’t always fit into a neat binary box. Families that don’t fit a certain mold face laws that make their lives more difficult when they seek health care.

Our leaders speak disparagingly about “trannies” as an affront to family values. However, only an estimated 1.0% of people aged 13 and older in the United States identify as transgender, according to data from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Demonizing trans people, forcing them to use their birth gender on documents, kicking them out of the military, scrutinizing their bodies and behaviors: These are all policies that distract from really helping families to access education, health care and good nutrition. 

Peace and national security are good values. But isn’t “peace through war” an oxymoron? Who really believes that dropping bombs and killing people halfway across the world is peaceful? Who really believes that WE can’t live in peace unless we “annihilate” another civilization very different from our own? We squander the national wealth to inflict suffering on others.

There is much more to say, and it is painful to face these contradictions. In fact, American politics are more chaotic and confounding right now than in any other time of my life. I have lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and its protests, the AIDS epidemic, women’s struggle for equal rights, the years of protest to legalize abortion, significant economic recessions, and the COVID pandemic.

At no time during all those years did I feel as unmoored from my fundamental understanding of what American democracy means, as I do now.

The rubber hits the road, so to speak, in the way our leaders enact values through policies. If policies hurt people, here and abroad, incidentally or deliberately, immediately or in a few months, then what American value do such policies promote? The answer is that they don’t reflect the national values that have, for 250 years, made America great.

— Community Columnist Barbara Mezeske is a retired teacher and resident of Holland. She can be reached at bamezeske@gmail.com.

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