I did voter registration drives in my area for a few pre-election years, and it’s really staggering the number of minority people who “don’t do politics”. As though that somehow helps them or is something to wear as a badge of honor. Not that they tune it out, but they actively avoid it at all costs.
I convinced a few of them to change their tune and got them set up with absentee ballots to reduce the friction in voting, but man a lot of people genuinely want to avoid any mention of the government. I don’t really get it, but I don’t live their lives either. I haven’t seen how poorly the system treats them, and I don’t know what anxieties they might have about participating in the system.
I think, overall, people are rational actors using whatever information they have available to them (even if that information is dis/mis-information). So there’s some set of reasons these people feel so thoroughly disenfranchised that they don’t even bother trying to participate. It’s probably not a very good reason, in reality, but it’s good enough for them to act on. idk how to fix that, but we probably should figure it out.
That’s a fair point, I sadly don’t have the energy to do much action myself and am happy to hear others like you do try!
To your point on minority positions, I know there’s some fear there of retribution sometimes, or that the state makes it more difficult then necessary so that puts them off. Also just finding the time in our lives to do so, I pay a lot of attention to politics and it makes me angry a lot of the time, so I can understand why people want to tune it out for those kinds of reasons, however it is so important that you just have to do it at the end of the day or the consequences are… gestures around
I’m sure there some good historical ideas, thinking particularly the civil rights movements and their tactics to get out the vote, I know it’s a different time now but I’m sure a lot of it would still ring true/helpful.
I did voter registration drives in my area for a few pre-election years, and it’s really staggering the number of minority people who “don’t do politics”. As though that somehow helps them or is something to wear as a badge of honor. Not that they tune it out, but they actively avoid it at all costs.
I convinced a few of them to change their tune and got them set up with absentee ballots to reduce the friction in voting, but man a lot of people genuinely want to avoid any mention of the government. I don’t really get it, but I don’t live their lives either. I haven’t seen how poorly the system treats them, and I don’t know what anxieties they might have about participating in the system.
I think, overall, people are rational actors using whatever information they have available to them (even if that information is dis/mis-information). So there’s some set of reasons these people feel so thoroughly disenfranchised that they don’t even bother trying to participate. It’s probably not a very good reason, in reality, but it’s good enough for them to act on. idk how to fix that, but we probably should figure it out.
That’s a fair point, I sadly don’t have the energy to do much action myself and am happy to hear others like you do try!
To your point on minority positions, I know there’s some fear there of retribution sometimes, or that the state makes it more difficult then necessary so that puts them off. Also just finding the time in our lives to do so, I pay a lot of attention to politics and it makes me angry a lot of the time, so I can understand why people want to tune it out for those kinds of reasons, however it is so important that you just have to do it at the end of the day or the consequences are… gestures around
I’m sure there some good historical ideas, thinking particularly the civil rights movements and their tactics to get out the vote, I know it’s a different time now but I’m sure a lot of it would still ring true/helpful.