‘The ballot is stronger than the bullet’

Shortly before President Abraham Lincoln was assasinated, he is said to have made a speech that asserted ‘the ballot is stronger than the bullet’. He had only just been re-elected and begun his second term as President, when during a theatre performance of Our American Cousin a bullet was fired by confederate sympathiser, John Wilkes Booth, resulting in the eventual death of Lincoln.

The way we make decisions as a group influences much our daily lives. Politicians are powerful, but they are also public servants, elected by us. They have decisionmaking powers within government for meaningful societal change. We are fortunate in the UK that we can choose to either engage or disengage in our democratic political system, where we have the luxury of disagreeing or even protesting to effect change. On a global scale, an estimated 4 billion people across 70 countries will be exercising their democratic right to vote in what are purported to be free and fair elections (Financial Times 2024). It seems that 2024 is set to be a tumultuous and memorable year of politics, where we will see changes that have the potential to affect us for decades to come.