The shutdown is over, the debt ceiling has been raised and the country is going back to the prosperous days we are used to.
Or so many would think.
Winston Churchill famously said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
But if he had the same conversation with a college student today, it would probably take him about 30 seconds to realize that our democracy was in peril.
Students on this campus, and others around the country are helplessly ill-informed about the events changing the landscape of their country. We do this both by choice and by habit, because our generation has a weird phobia of consulting traditional news sources before voicing our loud opinions on social media.
When we woke up on Thursday, the day the United States would have defaulted on its debt and potentially sent us into another great depression, many took note that the government had reopened and celebrated the return of the panda cam.
On a side note, I’m not sure how many of us knew the shutdown and the default were two different things to begin with.
But that’s the least of our problems in an environment where college students rely on social media to update them on their surroundings.
Buzzfeed conducted a social media study that gauged interest in the government shutdown around the country and across age groups. Although the results were generalized, the study showed that Louisiana college students had the minumum amount of per-capita Facebook mentions compared to other states, particularly in the Northeast.
This is the root of a systemic failure.
When we consider our position in society, we ought to be ashamed at the level of interest we show in national and state politics.
We are not only voters in a democracy that relies on our wit to function, but we are the next in line to take over the running of our nation’s businesses and public institutions.
This generation deserves better information, and it is right out there for the taking.
The New York Times, USA Today and The Advocate are three papers available on campus that are capable of informing this student body. But we refuse to pick them up, and stacks of newspapers lie untouched in front of Middleton Library every day.
The Daily Reveille is somewhat to blame. It is the most widely distributed source of news on campus, and it reaches the most students.
But if you read our front pages over the last couple of weeks, you may have caught one or two articles on the minimal impact the shutdown would have at LSU.
It should have graced the cover nearly every day, as it did in most newspapers across the country.
But students shouldn’t expect to get all of their news from a student newspaper or the social media. It is entirely up to us to stay informed so that we may participate in our democracy without relying on our parents’ or friends’ opinions to guide us.
We, as the future of this country, have to reclaim some sort of intellectual independence and consult objective news sources so that we may form our own opinions.
It is our duty as citizens, and students, to educate ourselves so that we can make our generation of politics more functional than our parent’s.
But the odds are against us.
After all, the founding fathers — in their infinite wisdom — only permitted the people to elect members of the House of Representatives. Now that we are able to elect senators — and practically elect presidents   — we need to assume the responsibility.
The future of America is in our hands. Don’t screw it up.
Eli Haddow is a 20-year-old English and history junior from New Orleans.