6 ms·

A large non-voting would-be constituency means that there is little mandate for politicians to drive policy. If say 90% of the population didn't vote, plus the

• andyjohnson0 13y ago
  Politics is how complex societies make decisions at the largest scale. Despite the wet dreams of the tea party contingent, politics and government-by-mandate aren't optional in the 21st century and haven't been for a long time. Tocqueville died in 1859, back when things were simpler. If 90% of the population refuse to vote then you would end-up with one of two outcomes: 1. A minority government governing with a mandate from <= 10% of the population. Cue politician saying 'look, I got 80% of the votes cast'. Expect: extreme social unrest, dictatorship by minority, authoritarianism. 2. No government. Not as great as some might think. Expect: nothing-gets-done, social collapse, power vacuum, enemy nations sharpen their knives. First-world politicians in this century won't have their ambitions "tempered" by large scale withdrawal from voting - all this would do is remove the main mechanism that restrains them. Even in a society that has backed itself into this kind of local minima, politics and politicians would still exist.
• cabalamat 13y ago
  > officials would be so afraid of a revolution ... that they would set up a security apparatus to prevent one from ever happening.