Young adults need to vote.

There have been too many times college students have said they don’t know what is going on in politics because they don’t have time or don’t care about it.

Well, students need to care.

Overall, voting rates for Americans 18 to 24 have dropped from 50.9 percent in 1964 to 38 percent in 2012, according to an analysis of presidential elections by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Young people should have the highest voting rate because the decisions the president and Congress make now affect students for the rest of their lives. It is extremely difficult to make amendments or kill a bill after it has been signed in.

How hard is it to get on social media, news organizations’ websites, or talk to some professors about politics? Researching the information is not a difficult task, as long as you are aware of people’s biases.

The only difficulty students should have is making a decision on what party you support. I struggle with some of the things my party says, but I chose them because the majority of what they fight for is what I agree with. I try to find things that will affect my future, like economics and international affairs, to help me make my decision.

Voting is a privilege that Americans take for granted. Thousands of people have died so that we could even have this freedom.

Yet thousands of young adults don’t even care. They don’t appreciate the sacrifice that soldiers and their families have made just so that we could have the luxury of living a free country.

It is my number one pet peeve to hear someone say that they didn’t vote. There are thousands of people living in other countries that would sacrifice everything they have to live in a country that would allow them to vote for their leader.

Sudents just walk all over that.

According to emarketer.com, young adults spend an average of 25 to 50 minutes a day on social media. So why not spend some of that time researching politics? You are already online so you might as well use some of that time to learn about issues that can affect your future.

This country doesn’t realize how good we have it. Even if there is a lot of disagreement among the population about many issues, the majority of the privileges we enjoy are much, much more than people in almost any other country in the world.

There are a lot of countries where you can’t even l talk about politics in public. You are to do as the king, president, supreme leader, or whoever tells you. You are not to fight it. You are to be a citizen and handle the cards that are dealt to you.

We need to stop acting like we don’t care about anything. We need to stop acting like politics is a joke, because it isn’t.

Sure, the things Donald Trump says are sometimes comical, but how many times do we actually listen to what he says?

How many times do you hear of other candidates?

Donald Trump has the spotlight right now because everyone likes to joke about him, but do you know anything else about any other candidate?

It is time to wake up, students. Smell the freedom that people fought for. Take in the fact that our future is in our hands. Vote to make a change.

Even if you think that your vote won’t count, it will. If everyone who said they don’t vote because it won’t make a difference voted, a whole lot of stuff would changed in America.
If you haven’t looked at any candidates yet, you need to start researching now.

My future is important to me, which is why I vote. I certainly hope that you could say the same.