I Was Angry in 2016-Now I Am Just Tired
Voters sacrificing power for perfection in candidates got us here.
“I don’t like her! She’s a corporate owned, neo-liberal sell out! She’s a centrist, she won’t fix anything!”
“If this is the best candidate the Dems can come up with they deserve to lose!”
“Both sides suck! My vote doesn’t matter anyway!”
“Politics is boring, they’re all owned by lobbyists anyway!”
“They don’t fight hard enough! Screw compromising! We voted for them why isn’t it fixed yet!!”
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/03/in-past-elections-u-s-trailed-most-developed-countries-in-voter-turnout/ “The 55.7% VAP turnout in 2016 puts the U.S. behind most of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, most of whose members are highly developed democratic states. Looking at the most recent nationwide election in each OECD nation, the U.S. places 30th out of 35 nations for which data is available.”
2018: “Last year also marked the first time since 1982 that the voter turnout rate in midterm elections surpassed 50%. This was a stark reversal from the previous midterm year, when turnout had decreased — from 45.5% in 2010 to 41.9% in 2014. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/historic-highs-in-2018-voter-turnout-extended-across-racial-and-ethnic-groups/
“The pro-GOP pattern is unmistakable. Turnout among Republicans in the 10 states that have held primaries so far is up substantially from the last comparable election year (either 2018 or earlier depending on the state). Meanwhile, turnout in Democratic contests is down in five of those states and up only marginally in most of the others. In total, according to data compiled by political consultant John Couvillon, GOP turnout is up 32 percent so far while Democratic turnout is down 3 percent.”
“Partisan registration statistics in these states have also been moving in the Republican direction. Registered North Carolina Democrats outnumbered Republicans by more than 570,000 on the eve of the 2018 primaries. Today, they lead by less than 300,000. Kentucky Democrats had a 10 percent lead in registered voters when Donald Trump took office; today their lead is down to under one point. Republicans have added nearly 450,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania since 2014; Democrats have lost nearly 90,000. The primary turnout numbers merely confirm what data have been foreshadowing for years.”
We lost Roe V Wade because we do not vote and we do not care about long term results. The only things that seem to make people vote are fear and hate, which has been working amazingly well for GOP as they show up every election. If the GOP acted like liberals they would have quit voting when we won battles on civil rights, LGBTQ rights, Roe V Wade etc. They didn’t, we did though. We just said “Eh, we’re good why bother.” They showed up year after year after year and got more and more entrenched and then liberals act like they didn’t see this coming. If you didn’t, you weren’t paying attention, or you were so caught up in wanting perfection and solving things in two years that you forgot the people on the other side of the aisle hate you with a burning passion.
So, I am no longer angry. I will vote, but I am tired of seeing the same failures by voters year after year after year after year. Don’t blame the politicians when you refuse to support them and give them the power they need to do their job.
