There has been a lot of talk about people not voting, especially with regards to the 2016 election.
We need a long discussion about this.
First, historically, higher voter turnout results in more liberals and fewer conservatives getting elected. There are lots of data from multiple nations supporting this claim.
Second, there is campaign finance. Every time elections get a little more expensive, politicians need more money to get elected, and they become more dependent on donors for the continued existence of their careers. Every little thing from longer election cycles to more expensive television ads increases the influence of donors relative to voters.
On top of that, every act of deregulation that reduces limitations on money in politics (e.g. the Citizens United ruling) further expands the influence of donors relative to voters.
Lastly, gerrymandering concentrates voters of similar views into very homogenous districts, which gives politicians even fewer reasons to actually care about what voters think or want.
This process has been going on for many decades now, the influence of voters have been eroding relative to the influence of donors for a long time. Politicians are VERY responsive to anything that negatively affects donors, but will only act on the will of voters when it doesn't conflict with the wants and/or needs of donors.
Most Americans may not be conscious of this, and we as a nation do not openly discuss this very much, but I think even the most uninformed voters can kind of feel that something is terribly wrong.
They correctly feel that their votes will not change the decisions of politicians, so why bother voting?
The expansion of the influence of money acts to suppress voter turnout.
This is why Bill Clinton's third-way strategy was so destructive to the Democratic party. All that "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" stuff he did served to further expand and entrench the power and influence of money in the Democratic party, so now any voter who wants a government that serves voters instead of donors has no one to turn to because neither party is interested in what voters want.
Right now, the establishment Democrats are fighting to preserve the status quo. They are fighting to preserve a system that protects the political influence of donors at the expense of voters. They fight for this because if they don't, all those donors will stop giving them money and they will lose their political careers. They are doing things that make voters want to stay home, which results in fewer Dems getting elected, which results in a weaker Democratic party with less power, which makes establishment Democrats want to depend even more on donors instead of voters. It's a vicious cycle that is driving the Democratic party into the ground. The weaker they get, the more they want money to fight to get ahead, which results in more suppression of the vote, which feeds the cycle all over again.
This is why Bernie and the Justice Democrats are so important. They want to get all money out of politics, and so establishment Democrats will fight Bernie and the JDs with far more vigor than they will ever fight against Republicans. But if you actually believe in liberal causes, we HAVE to get all money out of politics, and right now Bernie and the Justice Dems are the ones we can count on to fight the hardest against the corrupting influence of money in our elections.
And the media doesn't want to talk about this because they are a beneficiary of this corrupt system. Politicians need money because they need to buy ads, and the media are the very ones making money from those ad purchases. So they are never going to talk about all of this.
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