About the importance of voting and participation in politics

Politics & Elections
1

Continuing the discussion from Democratic National Convention August 19-22 2024:

Because it’s not that simplistic. There are multiple levels of government – municipal, county, state/provincial, federal; there are school boards and other governing bodies, all of which are part of the sociopolitical ecosystem, which is a fancy way of saying that all of them determine some aspect of our real everyday lives in one way or another. Minority parties that lose elections can still wield considerable influence, for example.

What undermines all of this is the UUD – the Uninterested Uninformed Dumbass. The one who knows nothing. The ones who don’t bother to vote. This is how the Trumps of this world get elected into power. This is how democracies die.

2

To quibble, Individual-ONE gets elected by IUDs (Interested, Uninformed Dumbasses). And that makes the system look even worse to the UUDs because all they see is some guy manipulating a bunch of idiots to gain power.

3

Absolutely true. Which is why this is such a fraught and complicated issue.

My special contempt for “undecided” voters is that they claim to have an open mind to facts but haven’t made the slightest effort to actually inform themselves about anything. My view of MAGAts is different. The hardcore is just pure evil. Which leads me to this:

… that makes the system look even worse to the UUDs because all they see is some guy manipulating a bunch of idiots to gain power.

The majority of any country’s population are not intrinsically “idiots”, but they may very well be subject to manipulation by vested interests and the media they control. Just consider for a moment this chart of the amount of funding that goes into public broadcasting in the US compared to the rest of the world – the US, I might add, where Fox News is the #1 “news” network, and which has no propagandizing equivalent outside of maybe North Korea.

4

This is the problem in the USA. I’ve said it for decades. Couple this with the aggressive efforts being made by these same vested interests to smother meaningful public education, and you have a recipe for a malleable public. Which is, of course, the goal.

Plus these same interests make it intentionally difficult to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. A person has really got to be dedicated to have a handle on what’s actually going on. If I’m working 3 jobs just to keep the household together, well… where’s the time to do that?

5

Right. 2020 had the largest turnout since William McKinley’s election in 1900, yet it was still very close. Turnout is important, but it isn’t a cure all.

6

I live in a country where voting is mandatory, and you get fined if you fail to vote and you don’t have a reasonable excuse (e.g. serious illness). It’s not a massive fine, but it’s larger than being simply symbolic.

Nearly everyone here pays attention to politics, with an average level of being well-informed that is dramatically higher than the same in the US. It’s just part of the culture. We pay a lot in taxes, and in exchange we watch our parliament and our government very closely to ensure those taxes are being spent appropriately. In the US, many many fewer people devote the same kind of attention at the same depth of detail; instead, most people just complain about taxes and assume it’s all being wasted and misspent.

It’s a significant cultural difference. I wouldn’t say exactly that people here enjoy paying taxes, but there is a clear and specific understanding that we are buying our society with those taxes, and that it’s our responsibility to ensure that society is being purchased and built the way we want it.

Of course, we’re a very small country, so there’s no opportunity for regional pockets of isolated extremism to form and metastasize into larger movements. The political dialogue, and the political vocabulary, remain largely national and common to one another. The old saw about “you can have your opinion, but you can’t have your own facts” applies here.

Bottom line, the official policy here is “you are required to participate,” which creates a cultural framework in which everyone understands that it’s important, deep into their bones. It’s just assumed. And as a consequence, people are informed and engaged.

In the US, by contrast, there’s more of a sense that politicians are speaking in simplifications and generalities because people are stupid and can’t grasp the full picture, so the reins are gently taken out of the people’s hands and they’re sent away with a patronizing pat on the head. Don’t worry about the details. We’ll just give you a big shiny slogan so you have a vague sense of our priorities, and then you go off and live your life. What we’re doing is boring. You don’t need to waste your time with this. We’ve got it. And, hey, if things don’t work out, we’ll explain why it’s the Other Side’s fault. Hey, look, the Bachelor is on again. Bye now.

I don’t know how you unwind that, and get to where my country is at. It might be too late.

7

This. I have a nephew who simply doesn’t care or have any interest in politics outside of the surface stuff, partly because he and his wife are juggling jobs and their first kid. He’s not an idiot, but you can’t make someone care or follow if they don’t have the time or inclination. He certainly can’t donate or work for a candidate.

It’s a little smug and dismissive to brand all of these folks “idiots.” There are plenty of idiots out there of course, but that’s a broad brush.

8

Agree with @Cervaise 's assessment. Additionally, a generation or two of US citizens have been trained to view government with suspicion or outright contempt. I think this started in the 80s with Reagan when he stated "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." and similar quotes he made popular. Here is a politician, a President, telling everyone that the organization he is leading is up to no good. It was and still is a powerful message and is largely accepted.

Many Americans’ deeply held belief is that government is corrupt and/or incompetent, and only wants to take their money and give it to someone else. So why get engaged when one’s single vote wont make any difference? It’s crazy, but many Americans just dont care. There is a stat out there of the number of eligible voters to number of people who actually vote - it’d be interesting to compare that to other democracies.

9

I know all this, I do, but I keep coming back to the fact that especially these days, basic human rights are an integral part of politics. Again, I understand, but then I think, are people just “too busy” to care about others dying at the hands of police and botched back alley abortions and suicide driven by dehumanizing attacks by local government? Or do they not care to begin with? (And that’s not even getting into Gaza, which I’m composing a separate thread about in my head.)

10

I think it’s just people living in their own little bubble: “I gots to look out for me and mine. I got mine, so if it don’t affect me, leave me alone!”

11

You know that there is a political party in the US that has been working hard to tap into that attitude, nurture it and use it to drive support for them, right?