This is a hot take.
Here’s the problem with your hypothesis:
You’re mixing together people who don’t vote with people publicly advocating not voting. That’s completely unsupported. Let’s see some stats on why people don’t vote. Is it because they don’t have time because they’re working, because they’re uncomfortable with the process, because they’re being lazy? On the other hand, what are the predictors of voting? We know age is a factor, so that would encourage us to think about the time availability question.
The second part is that the disengagement approach you’re advocating has driven the Democratic Party to the right. The Third Way movement came entirely from seeing Reagan’s engagement numbers. Not voting casts a zero information signal. First, the numbers only move mildly from year to year, and even when they do it tends to come down to the charisma of the candidate, not the policy positions.
A surprising number of Americans want universal healthcare, support LGBT rights and are against racism, yet vote for Donald Trump or DeSantis because they can get the crowds riled up in the way that policy wonks just don’t.
I mean, when the republicans did that huge study that found that economic and demographic changes in the US meant they needed to adopt more progressive policies (eg not being openly racist) if they wanted to have a future, the gop said “screw that, we will just depress the vote.”
So, no, your policy is not evidence-based, and it’s unreasonable. It forces the country to the right. If that’s what you want, go for it.
Voters turned out in 2016, the DNC didn't like how that went and went to court and had it ruled in a court of law that the DNC is a private entity and can do wtfever they want to, voters be damned.
It's not some big secret that democrats see leftists as a bigger enemy than they ever saw Republicans as.
First “democrats” is doing a lot of work here. I’m assuming the voters that you’re talking about turning out were democrats. I’m assuming the politicians they voted for were democrats. So what you mean is some subset (eg Third Way types, which have already been mentioned).
Use numbers. What was the turnout for the previous years? What was the turnout for Obama? For Bill Clinton? Was it bigger when Dennis Kucinich was in the race? Other than Bernie, he was the leftmost candidate that I can recall - at least in the top 5 in recent years. State the point you are trying to prove clearly, then demonstrate it.
I’m a Bernie supporter - he actually helped secure a research grant I worked on, I’ve met him in person, and I donated to each of his campaigns since I started to be able to do that kind of thing. I’m a member of the DSA. I’m also a scientist, and I deal with this kind of thing all the time.
What you’re basically coming off as, to be honest, is that family member in the maga hat who keeps yelling that 2020 was rigged.
If anyone is interested in the actual reasons people give, you’re mostly out of luck because there is precious little research, neither of the major parties seem to care about this demographic, and neither do pollsters for the most part. Here’re the results of some research following the 2020 presidential (based on a fairly small sample).
Spoiler: It’s not because they don’t have time.
That's a lot of downvotes.
I’m on kbin so I only see upvotes:)
