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People care to such a small extent that most don’t even bother to vote. Good luck running a healthy democracy like that. The reality is, most people are very f

People care to such a small extent that most don’t even bother to vote. Good luck running a healthy democracy like that. The reality is, most people are very focused on their own problems. Complaining is free, but doing something about it is not.

myshpa 3y ago
Let's not pretend that in the end money doesn't dictate rules regardless of who's momentarily in the office. The laws and regulations already in place are there for a reason. Not something that could be easily changed with a new administration. The system is made by generations to persist, whatever happens.
- slashdev 3y ago
  So change it. Drain the swamp for real.
  - ratsmack 3y ago
    And just to be clear, the swamp has no party affiliation.
nwiswell 3y ago
> People care to such a small extent that most don’t even bother to vote. That isn't supported by the facts: > Approximately 240 million people were eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election and roughly 66.1% of them submitted ballots, totaling about 158 million. In any case, it's true that the US has lower levels of voter turnout than other Western democracies, but it's unclear how to partition the reasons (less engagement/less caring? less notion of civil duty? less ability to get to the polls, including unfriendly work laws and voter suppression?) The bottom line is that "most" eligible voters in the US DO care about something... but I'd suggest that the problem is that people care way too much about specific things that don't matter very much. If all the calories go into the hot button issues, then everything else is starved of oxygen. Our problem is perhaps one of too much emotional engagement.
- slashdev 3y ago
  Honestly 66% is pretty good. Australia has compulsory voting, which I think is better (they have > 90% turnout). Canada was 62.2% in the last election (and they paid for it - imho), that’s roughly in line with the US. The global average is right in the middle at 63.8%. That’s better than I thought.
  - nicwilson 3y ago
    Yes, compulsory voting is great, it removes a bunch of pathologies of democracy, to name a few: electioneering is about making people vote for me and not for others and not trying to waste effort to "fire up the base" (and therefore elections are much cheaper since the "volume of speech" required much lower); voter suppression is much harder to pull off since voting is a responsibility not just a right (still possible, just make the kill themselves, see the robodebt fiasco).
- crote 3y ago
  A big part of it is the two-party political system. Why bother voting when you don't like either party? The proportional democracies in Western Europe routinely have voter turnouts around 80%. There is always some party whose views roughly align with yours, and your vote never goes to waste. And yeah, the deliberate voter suppression in the US isn't going to help either. A lot less people are going to stand in line for multiple hours, compared to the "five-minute stop on my drive to work" stuff Europe is used to - not to mention the whole hassle with voter registration and voter roll purging.

myshpa 3y ago

Let's not pretend that in the end money doesn't dictate rules regardless of who's momentarily in the office. The laws and regulations already in place are there for a reason. Not something that could be easily changed with a new administration. The system is made by generations to persist, whatever happens.

slashdev 3y ago
So change it. Drain the swamp for real.
- ratsmack 3y ago
  And just to be clear, the swamp has no party affiliation.

nwiswell 3y ago

> People care to such a small extent that most don’t even bother to vote. That isn't supported by the facts: > Approximately 240 million people were eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election and roughly 66.1% of them submitted ballots, totaling about 158 million. In any case, it's true that the US has lower levels of voter turnout than other Western democracies, but it's unclear how to partition the reasons (less engagement/less caring? less notion of civil duty? less ability to get to the polls, including unfriendly work laws and voter suppression?) The bottom line is that "most" eligible voters in the US DO care about something... but I'd suggest that the problem is that people care way too much about specific things that don't matter very much. If all the calories go into the hot button issues, then everything else is starved of oxygen. Our problem is perhaps one of too much emotional engagement.

slashdev 3y ago
Honestly 66% is pretty good. Australia has compulsory voting, which I think is better (they have > 90% turnout). Canada was 62.2% in the last election (and they paid for it - imho), that’s roughly in line with the US. The global average is right in the middle at 63.8%. That’s better than I thought.
- nicwilson 3y ago
  Yes, compulsory voting is great, it removes a bunch of pathologies of democracy, to name a few: electioneering is about making people vote for me and not for others and not trying to waste effort to "fire up the base" (and therefore elections are much cheaper since the "volume of speech" required much lower); voter suppression is much harder to pull off since voting is a responsibility not just a right (still possible, just make the kill themselves, see the robodebt fiasco).
crote 3y ago
A big part of it is the two-party political system. Why bother voting when you don't like either party? The proportional democracies in Western Europe routinely have voter turnouts around 80%. There is always some party whose views roughly align with yours, and your vote never goes to waste. And yeah, the deliberate voter suppression in the US isn't going to help either. A lot less people are going to stand in line for multiple hours, compared to the "five-minute stop on my drive to work" stuff Europe is used to - not to mention the whole hassle with voter registration and voter roll purging.