followtics

Stupid word of the Day - Followtics - n- the practice of choosing a political party to follow based on who most of your friends are following, then constructing a political philosophy by parroting campaign comercials issued by the chosen party.

As a middle schooler, I have seen followtics in action almost non-stop for the past few months. Fellow students bitterly arguing about who is better, McCain or Obama, kids wearing "Nobama" and "Gobama" pins on their backpacks, a redneck kid naming his hog Palin (it remains unclear whether he ever put lipstick on it), classmates quoting the SNL debates back and forth in endless volleys, all without really knowing the pros and cons of either candidate. The closest I heard anyone come to a legitimate reason was the aforementioned redneck kid saying of Obama:

"Heeyell take awayer goons!" (Translation: "He'll take away our guns", an accusation which I doubt is true, but which could seem legitimate to him.)

Their's nothing really wrong with followtics in middle school, which at the pre-voting stage mainly consists of liking the same candidate one's parents do. But if we kids never figure out that there are reasons to vote for someone other than the fact that they started riding the elephant or the donkey a few years ago under their parents' influences, POOF! We suddenly have a candidate who was elected for the sole reason of being either a democrat or a Republican. He (or she) could probably promise that they would sit on the whitehouse lawn and kill puppies for their entire term, and still get elected.

The reason I bring this up, is that followtics is not a recent phenomenon - in fact, there are many practitioners of it who are over eighteen right now. In 2008. On the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Remember to vote!