This is just too accurate not to share…..
And because it is so spot-on, it may explain this, at least partially:
The non-profit, non-partisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University’s School of Public Affairs reported only 14.8 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the first 25 state primaries, down from 18.3 percent in the 2010 midterm elections.
That’s about 18.2 million ballots from a pool of some 122.8 million eligible voters.
I wonder which came first, the dysfunctional political system or the apathetic electorate?
My family and friends are sick of hearing me repeatedly tell them to VOTE; that every election is an important election for all of us. This election in November will be another make-or-break for the Democratic party. VOTE, DAMMIT, VOTE.
Campaigning has become political theatre; Gil does everything that real candidtaes do in their political ads (paid for by….?). I continued to be amazed that so many people seem to be willing to go along with the scam.
Seems the the primaries are closed from the git go. Two parties expect all of us to pay for their intra-party elections. They nominate the party faithful, member of the wings, to stand in the fall. The result is extremists rather than centrists, men and women who are chosen for their dogma, not their ability to find solutions. Then, every ten years they redraw districts to be safer for their candidates meaning less debate, more surety for those extremists. It leads to an electorate that sees politics as the proverbial stacked deck where the vote of the individual does not matter. Better take the time on election day to replace the wax-ring on the toilet.
These days, jim, that ain’t a wax-ring on the toilet!
When I was being raised to be a good Republican, by parents who would be appalled today at how the party they invested so much of their time in has turned out, I always suspected that I was being given the air brushed picture of politicians and politics of the time. But then, the pictures of Uncle Sam were enhanced as well.
So I grew up immensely proud of being an American, and the American Dream loomed large to me and our government heroic in capability.
Unrealistic? For sure. Dysfunctional? Not a bit.
Republicans of today know one thing for sure. If they were to be held accountable for all of the damage to the country done by conservatism in general, and President Bush in particular, they would go extinct as a political party. So they have to portray politics, our government, our people, politicians and collaterally our country as inept and washed up just to be seen as average.
Of course this strategy also supports their political and financial agenda of turning over the country to business interests, as well as accommodating their “bench” of hopeless helpless clowns like Palin, Perry, Bachmann, Boehner, and the like.
Cartoons like the one Sheila references are actually pro Republican branding in this off hand way. They keep the GOP competitive even when they’re not.
Of course this is damaging to the country. Of course there is enough truth in the caricature to seem accurate to those who want it to be. John Galt seems real to some too. That’s the nature of branding.
While it turns out that I have apparently always been misled, being coached to view my country and our government as a source of pride is more functional than being led in the opposite direction.
Apathetic electorate? Seriously?
Checkout the primary ballot that was available to me as a Democrat in Indiana’s 3rd.
http://www.whitleygov.com/egov/documents/1394814953_46199.pdf
How many ‘no candidates’ should I go vote for?
I don’t think the electorate is apathetic. I think people just don’t identify with the political Party System. Political parties have nothing to do with how they define and identify themselves any longer. I think this especially true among people in my nieces’ age group – 30’s- they aren’t joiners.
When Indiana opens up the primary process and does not mandate declaration of party and restricting primary votes to the one party I WILL VOTE IN A PRIMARY. It’s just stupid that you can not “split a ticket” in the primary process and vote for who you want to run regardless of their party affliation.
My party affliation is my decision and I should not have to share that decision with anybody but myself. I am an INDEPENDENT not a Republican nor a Democrat. Democrats in this State are just Republicans in “sheeps clothing” (Blue Dogs anyone?).
I have voted in every non-primary election since the day I could vote and I have only voted in one primary; that was because an individual I loathed was running and I HAD TO VOTE AGAINST HIM. I generally dop not see any individual that I am enthused about voting for and my votes have typically been a decision of “the lesser of two evils”.
I was enthusiastic when Obama ran the first time, I felt that finally someone I can feel good about voting for had come along and then he did his “compromise” thing; no single payer health insurance, G Bush got a pass on war crimes, no banks held accountable (other than a slap on the wrist), no assistance for the “comman man” during the worst recession in my memory. The second time he ran it was again a decision between the lesser of two evils. At least I got to see a Democrat carry Indiana in a Presidential election which I had thought I would never see.
In my mind political dysfunction BREEDS voter apathy!