Frank's Musings

If there’s one thing valuable that Trump’s presidency made clear, it is that a nation like ours is made up of two kinds of people. Some of us resent it when we can’t do anything for ourselves. The rest of us would rather collaborate with others because the result is almost always better.

Among other things, this could reflect the illusion of successful independence fostered by isolation imposed by the 2020-22 pandemic or more broadly by the widespread use of the internet for shopping, communicating, and even administrative work.

Even so, the statistics measuring voter turnout in The U.S. overstate the percentage of American citizens that participates in our democracy. The denominator of that turnout rate is usually the number of registered voters. Therefore, it doesn’t even include the number of citizens who don’t bother to register. The size of our populace disaffected by democratic government is probably much larger than the share of voters who support antiestablishment candidates.

Exercising one’s right to vote usually means belief that an election has some effect on what the government does and on how it does it. However, if one feels that “the system is rigged,” and ignores the majority’s will, even the results of a court-sanctioned election are suspect.  Fortunately, the 2016 victory of a nonplussed anti -establishment presidential candidate was followed by the election of a conventional president who plays by the rules.

How many more times will sufficient voters realize their responsibility to preserve the republic by exercising their right to vote.?   Apathy is as much a threat to a thriving democracy as alienation.  Despotism will inevitably replace liberal democracy in an exclusively self-involved world.