Excitement builds every four years around a presidential election. People go to the mat debating the issues and character of the people running for President. That choice really matters to them. The truth is that local elections should matter more.
The President can do a lot, but many of those actions won’t affect your day-to-day life. This is especially true if you compare how his actions affect you compared to how your mayor’s actions affect you.
If the mayor chooses the wrong police chief, that will have an immediate impact on you. And that’s the point I want to make. Local elections matter more to you than the person in the Oval Office.
Or, as is the case here in Conway, if the Mayor and City Council secretly decide to add a data center, that will affect you. For better or worse, that will immediately affect you and your family. You can quickly change the course of your city. That is not the case in big national elections.
I’m trying to talk you into voting in elections where the President isn’t being voted on, like the one happening right now.
The Closer It Is, The More It Affects You…and the More You Can Do About It
This fancy chart illustrates a truth that we all know but rarely think about. The closer an event is to you, the more impact it will have.
I am 44. If I decide to wake up and eat a bunch of cake for breakfast, the impact will be immediate, and I will not feel well for the rest of the day.
If my family gets out of bed this morning and starts the day wanting to go to war with each other, that would affect me quite a lot.
On the other end of the spectrum, if my President gets out of bed this morning and decides to shut down the border or raise a tariff somewhere, the immediate impact on me is quite small.
The general rule of governance is that the closer the relation to me, the bigger the impact it has on me personally.
Local Concerns
An illustration of this is the town I live in, Conway, Arkansas. In Conway, several things have irritated folks, and none of them are happening in Washington, D.C.
One of those is the use of Flock cameras. In what seemed like a rather secretive move, the city council voted to spend $180,000 on Flock cameras at different intersections in town. Many people are concerned that this amounts to State surveillance. Others worry they will be misused, as they have been in other locations. There has been a legitimate uproar over all of it…and some vandalism, much like there has been in other locations.
Another of those is the planned data center. We don’t know much about the data center, but I’m almost certain the folks that live here don’t want it. Yet City Council approved it and will not talk much about it because of an NDA they signed.
Now, those are two big issues for our city. And City Council members are up for election. I wouldn’t be surprised if every incumbent loses and a scaling back of sorts soon takes place.
At the same time, I may speak with the surly and disgruntled among us so much that I don’t have a good read on how this election will turn out. That’s quite possible.
Either way, what will happen in this election? Something that will immediately affect me.
National Politics
We think about national politicians far more than those right in our backyard. The truth is, I live in Arkansas. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez don’t affect me or my life. The mayor of New York will not affect the life I lead in Arkansas. Yet, those two people take up a lot of the national news and then the discussion of individuals here in Arkansas.
Their decisions don’t affect me, but do you know whose will? My sheriff, mayor, city council, school board, and other local officials. My governor matters a lot more to me than those people. Yet, astonishingly, we don’t think about or talk about her as much as a few governors halfway across the country.
We should care about national governance. Choosing a president is important for the country. However, the choice of sheriff matters a whole lot more to your day-to-day life than the President ever will.
Be Salt
I do not believe Christians should disengage from the political process. In fact, I believe they should be a big part of it.
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”
Matthew 5:13 NASB1995
As has often been pointed out, salt has always had two functions. First, it does make things taste good. There is no denying that. Second, it is a preservative. In a time with no refrigerators, salt was needed to preserve food.
As Christians, we are to salt the place we live. We flavor the world in righteousness and preserve societal structures.
A Salty Illustration
When Christians decide to be salt in the government arena, excellent things happen. It’s just that we don’t take it seriously until it’s long past due.
Do you remember what happened with schools during COVID?
Parents finally heard some of the mess being taught to children and decided it wasn’t going to continue. School board meetings were packed to effect change. Transgender bathrooms, sexualized curriculum, and pornographic books were taken out of schools all over the country. School Board elections began to matter, and people who voted for perverse ideologies to be taught in schools were voted out of office.
Change came fast and decisively for the better in America’s schools. How?
I was at one here in Conway. It was heated. It was also obvious that things changed for the better because local Christians got involved in their local government process.
You Are Part of the Process Now
Representative governance is not the norm for humanity. In other words, individuals have rarely been part of the process. If you are a citizen of the United States and are of voting age, then you have the right to vote and are part of the governance. You are part of the process now.
And because you are part of the process, you have a responsibility to be salt and light in that process. Do it locally, where you will have a much bigger impact and see results immediately.
I hope this has helped convince you that you need to be involved in local governance. Part of that will be heading to the polling booth before this year’s elections are over.
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