The Oak Park election is over. As of this writing, I have yet to vote, and certainly feel I should. Vicki or Ravi? This or that school board candidate? The cost of village hall updating and moving the police to a different site. Age limits on the sale of unregulated THC products. Regulations on food trucks. And other issues that question how Oak Park might be made a more well-reasoned, friendly and safe place within which to reside.
Whatever the election results, some will be self-satisfied and others left grumbling about how voters got it all wrong. I hope the gas-fueled leaf blower ban is enforced — for the sake of the environment and for the sake of my eardrums.
But no matter what happens in the local election, Oak Park will still be a great place to live, if never a perfect fit for all. Much easier for democracy to work, writ micro than macro. Oak Park is very micro. The U.S. is uber macro. And matters of leaf blowers, leaf bagging, THC sales, Vicky or Ravi, and the rest seem so quaint when contrasted with national policies, particularly those being propagated since Jan. 20, 2025.
The macro political stage has become quite a frenetic scene. I’d like to think the vast majority of Oak Park voters did not vote in favor of the 2024 icky election results. In just the last 67 days, the current administration has likely betrayed even those who voted for the outcome. Keep in mind, the current U.S. population is 340 million and 77 million voted for what we now all have to process regarding how the government is, well, governing. Never mind that 263 million of us did not vote for what has repeatedly been compared to early 1930s Germany. Yikes!
Thus, my sense of being a voter-citizen for our local election next week is severely undermined. I am very grateful to live in Oak Park, in Illinois, a state with a governor who is vocalizing his resistance to the current, legitimately referred to as “draconian,” governing policies. But as a Boomer who now has seen 14 administrations come and go, with number 15 (formerly #13) now residing, I have developed an approach-avoidance political-psychological disposition. As a critical-thinking citizen, I am not a stranger to political election outcomes that result in disappointment and disapproval.
However, the last 10 years in particular have left me exhausted from trying to understand how easily duped are much of the electorate. Who voted for this? Oh I know who, and they are getting nothing in return for their vote, although try explaining that to them. Voting against one’s best interest has been common for many election cycles. But now we have political scholars describing our current government as akin to what happened in Germany over 90 years ago. Again, yikes!
The fascist playbook is driving our evolving dystopia, true. But the German citizenry didn’t have smart phones, social media or the internet to offer clarity about what were their government’s intentions, local and far beyond its borders. What is our excuse for allowing one-fifth of our population to invite the hateful, petty and clearly incompetently dangerous actors to be on stage?
So while part of me still feels voting matters, and Oak Park is offering an opportunity to remain a voter/citizen, another part of me is not so sure about that. I do, however, want to have the gas leaf blower ban enforced.
Joe Harrington is a resident of Oak Park.