Nathan Explains Science has spent a fair amount of resources to convince you that politics doesn't work quite the way that pundits would like you to believe. Among the topics: the many reasons — sometimes arguably legitimate — not to vote. Among them, your vote is unlikely to count, and even if it counted toward deciding your state's electoral college votes in a presidential election, your state's choice might not ultimately matter. Who gets elected might not matter — though Nathan Explains Science emphatically denies that assertion as it applies to recent presidential elections.
On the other hand, if no one votes, then anybody who does makes the decision for everyone. Thus, in an incremental sort of way, the fact that you vote makes democracy just a little bit safer.
I'm bringing this up because Errol Morris, innovative director of the documentaries The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War, just shot a short film on the subject of why we don't vote. You can view it here: 11 Excellent Reasons Not to Vote. It's about seven and a half minutes, and Morris does not disappoint.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
You know, it looks almost like a sampling bias type of problem. If you aren't personally invested in one candidate/policy or another, then you can have a certain amount of faith that, regardless of the winner, things will continue more or less as they always have. Politics in DC have a way of taking a while to filter down to an average citizen. Unless you have a strong partisan allegiance to begin with, you don't have a strong incentive to spend the time to inform yourself and vote.
ReplyDeleteTo use a quick example, I'm in favor of gay marriage. On that point, I can make a clear distinction, falling in line with Barack Obama. But at the same time, as a straight man, those issues aren't important for me, personally. As much as I support them ideologically, I don't want to base my decision off of them, when there are other issues that impact me more directly, like the economy, specifically my job prospects once I get out of school. Most of the big arguments on this point have focused around corporate regulations, national debt, and the like, and all those points of policy feel at least 3 steps away from affecting my daily life. Regardless of who wins this election, I'm still going to spend the next four years going to class, studying, and generally going about my day. It feels like the actual impact of this election are going to filter down from policy through layers of corporations, businesses, and family/friends before it actually impacts my life. It's hard to get invested in this election when the issues at hand feel so far from me. Being that I'm pretty isolated from the actual effects, and am not too passionate about any of the philosophical arguments (either because the impacts are distant enough from me that I don't want to base a decision off of them, or because I'm not familiar enough with the issue.), I'm not particularly invested in this election. At least, I won't be until 2 years from now, when [disaster happens], and [president] fails to [appropriate response].
This type of thinking seems to inform a lot of campaign rhetoric. Obama says Romney wants You to pay more for healthcare. Romney talks about how Obama wants to take You's money and give it to Not-You. It's all tailored to try to raise the stakes. You, listening to this speech, will face dire consequences for You and You's family if You doesn't vote for our side. Obama goes a step further, talking about how those wealthy people (Not-You) will foot the bill. Not in as many words, of course, and I'm grossly oversimplifying, but that's the message. The focus is always on “our policy will benefit You, and cost Not-You.” This isn't in and of itself a bad thing. If policy A is going to benefit me, then please tell me. The problem is that actual discussion of the plan gets swept away. It's the reason Romney has been so vague about the loopholes he would close to finance his economic plan. Being specific about where he's taking money from risks alienating people who are using that service. To an undecided voter, that information could really help push them into the Romney camp. He wouldn't even have to spend too much time on it. Post a big list of loopholes on his website, and the blogosphere would spread it for him. But the risk of alienating his base is high enough that he can't afford to do that.
Wow that's a lot of words. I hate to quit on a complaining note, but I'm 10 characters under the maximum allowed.
Thanks for the contribution, Joe. You've hit on two (or more) really interesting aspects of campaigns. First, most people feel pretty disconnected from most policy issues. While we often see pundits arguing about abortion, gay marriage, or something like that, most people just don't care that much. Asked to vote, they might go one way or the other, but these are not central issues to them. The economy, as you've suggested, is — maybe because it's sort of a prerequisite for getting anything else done.
ReplyDeleteSecond, politicians really do offer fairly ambiguous platforms in advertisements, stump speeches, and so forth, and for good reason. For one thing, most people don't want to hear it. In 2008, when Obama went off script, he often ended up giving detailed, often dull lectures on how to improve the economy or the merits the Iraq war. And everyone was bored. Not a good thing for a candidate to be. For another, there's evidence from researchers at UC Berkeley and Stanford that being ambiguous may benefit a candidate. (At some point I'll write more about that.)
On the other hand, some people end up feeling disengaged and uninvested in the outcome of an election — everything seems so abstract and distant from our daily lives, so what's the point? Well, I think there's a point, but I understand why others would disagree.
Looking to national government for intimate effects on your daily life is a category error.
ReplyDeleteGenerally speaking, that's true, though the government does have some control over the economy, and quite a bit of control over road repairs.
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