The real election adversary

If Republicans or Democrats were asked who their adversary in a US election was, they’d say the people of the other party, and they’d be completely wrong. The reality is that the people who determine election results are by far the biggest group of all: Those who don’t vote.

The brief video above was posted to Robert Reich’s Facebook Page a few days ago and shows this reality graphically.

Of course, this is nothing new, and I keep talking about this endlessly because people don’t seem to get it. In general, Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans, but the latter are more likely to vote, especially in the Midterms when Democrats typically stay home.

Because non-voters are by far the biggest group, they could change the outcome of an election, or they could ensure a legitimate result by ensuring the winner received an actual majority of eligible votes. Instead, they surrender all decisions about their lives to people chosen by those who DO vote. The people elected may do things non-voters like, or they may do things they hate, but either way, the choice of what politicians are in office to make those decisions about their lives was made for them, not by them. That’s stupid.

Don’t be stupid. There have been plenty of elections in which the outcome was decided by a handful of votes per precinct. I once voted in a town referendum that was exactly tied, so it failed. If ONE more person had voted for it, it would have won. Just. One. Vote.

But let’s suppose a Democrat lives somewhere dominated by the Republican Party. So what? Voting for the candidates they support sends a clear message to that dominant party that not everyone agrees with them and they need to govern for ALL, not just those who cheer at their rallies. And if those politicians don’t, the minority may one day become a majority to vote out politicians that ignore the will of the people. Happens all the time.

So, people who want to change the USA need to vote. They must vote as if everything depends on their vote alone alone, because it does. Democrats must get busy, get active, and get voting. We’re going to need every single vote we can get in order to elect only Democrats at the federal, state, and local level. Just one vote could make all the difference. Just. One. Vote.

Democrats: Don’t be stupid. VOTE!

This post is a revised version of something I posted to my personal Facebook page. That version was almost exclusively non-partisan.

Related

Here’s Robert Reich’s latest video, a spoof of pharmaceutical commercials designed to promote voting: