Voter turnout

[UltraBudgie]

For the last several elections, the clear winner has been "A Pox On Both Your Houses" -- not Democrat, nor Republican, and certainly not third party, but simply not voting. Disaffected voters. More that 1/3 of those eligible to vote choose not to.

They're quickly ignored. Polls measure "likely voters", ignoring the plurality who might vote but find it most acceptable not to. They're shuffled out of sight much like the jobless who are removed from unemployment statistics after 18 months.

Many are saying that turnout percentage will be much larger this year because "the stakes are so high". I don't think so. I think that voting has become an emotional pacifier. No matter who wins, plutocracy will continue its agenda, military brinkmanship will continue unabated, economic warfare and profit-driven exploitation will continue as normal. Voting gives the system of pretend democracy an air of legitimacy. All we're really choosing is the tone of how we'll be lied and pandered to. It's a distraction; the real powers who make the world the way it is don't care one bit about the "choices" we're allowed to make, they only care that we naively believe we don't have masters, and that we keep blaming each other instead of them.

But that's just me. Or is it? What do you think? Think people will show up?

[midicon]

I have never voted. Mostly for the reasons you highlight. You lay it all out quite clearly.

We are brainwashed to think our vote will change things.

Perhaps at some level we get what we deserve as a collective.

It's all rather sad really.

[pianopraze]

I see a big push on Twitter to get people not to vote from random accounts.

while Elon is encouraging everyone to register and vote. Even offering cash incentives. 

interesting times.

[mikell]

My wife's setting up the voting today and working it tomorrow from 6AM till midnight when everything has to be in. This is Michigan and the results should be in by late tomorrow. They don't expect it to happen till Friday late. So far Detroit has over 100,000 more ballots returned than sent out if that gives you any idea of what's going to happen. Not to mention the Secretary of State admitted the machines are programmed wrong but too late to fix it.

[Maxmars]

I have never voted. Mostly for the reasons you highlight. You lay it all out quite clearly.
We are brainwashed to think our vote will change things.
Perhaps at some level we get what we deserve as a collective.
It's all rather sad really.

I can understand the perspective about the futility of voting in todays 'engineered voting construct.' 

But maybe it's just my own cultural programming that urges me to continue participating in spite of the appearances and contrived clownsmanship the political class has engineered to lay over top of it.  Unlike you, I feel the brainwashing about voting is sort of like having to "smile" while a bully takes your lunch money...

Voting should be, and actually is, a very simple thing.  Counting.

Politicians of the 'duopoly' have created a convoluted façade to conceal the fundamentals of it... because they don't necessarily care about the results, and they are not above or beyond exploiting the system... to them voting is not "essential to the process"... the "process" is now orchestrated towards them remaining in power in perpetuity.  ("Continuity of governance")  This is one reason why the media was captured and controlled... to obscure and complicate the "process" (to the point of futility.)

But I still participate as I am allowed, because politicians are like a foolish child with a toy, they will eventually break their own game. 
And we (the people) cannot afford ever to remain silent like pawns and drones, lest they successfully codify "loyalty" as a matter of 'political compliance'... like certain other countries we all know of... at that point the American experiment is over.

If Americans have no voice, America is over and done with.

The political class wants you and I to believe that only "they" have a voice that matters... they want us to stand (silently) at the edge of the cliff... just in case they need to "push."

Voting is the de facto voice you can use... don't abandon it.

(Just my opinion.)

[UltraBudgie]

I see a big push on Twitter to get people not to vote from random accounts.

while Elon is encouraging everyone to register and vote. Even offering cash incentives. 

interesting times.

Oh and please everyone do vote if that's what your heart and mind think and desire, even if it's only an emotional exercise there is nothing in this world that is meaningless, do not take my disaffectation as advocacy, find your own haha

[UKTRUTH]

I think the mail in votes and early voting is higher than 2020.  Might be wrong on that, but when you consider that mail in voting was influenced by Covid in 2020, to be achieving the same or higher in 2024 with no Covid suggests that turrnout may be the highest ever.

[UltraBudgie]

Oh I think there will be a record number of votes counted, of course because there always must be now haha, but whether or not more people vote or not is a question still to be answered. Zing! Oops did I question election integrity help me Google I may have caught some Russia and need censored!

[Chiefsmom]

It used to matter and make a difference.
The only way to attempt to get back to that time, is to go vote.  I've even managed to get my youngest to do it.  For the first time.  

I swear, if we could just come together as a nation, and in the next couple elections, vote out every incumbent until they remember we really are "supposed" to be in charge, we might get our country back.  Oh, and get rid of lobbyists.

[Maxmars]

My problem is the idea that the 'main show' isn't as important as the 'little players' who few really consider... the judges, comptrollers, and mid-level officials... all of whom have 'aligned' or even 'pledged allegiance' with the façade of some 'party'... which just turn out to be "the club."

If each campaigning politician were ever held to account for their promises... they would all likely fail to live up to what they 'sold the voters' on. 
Not that they would accept the failure, instead they just blame it on other political thespians.

Now comes the 'grand finale' as if it were a competition... a trite reduction of the importance of the matter... into a 'show' about "winning."   
Leaving the population victims to PR characterizations, base lawfare, and a hefty dose of "make believe."

Voters are often seduced into overlooking that we are, in fact, assigning responsibilities... not glamour roles.

Look where glamour roles have gotten us: 'appearances,' secrets. Impotence and lies, and a captured government, laboring to silence us wherever it matters most.

Let's hope that we can change the zeitgeist of the political class.