Voting for Morons

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Fools

Or

Tools

“They aren’t gonna help us, too busy helping themselves; they aren’t gonna change this…we gotta do it ourselves“  Taylor Swift

        As I see it, there are three political parties in this country (and, correct me if I’m wrong); there’s the Dems, the GOPs and the “I don’t give a shit, I’m not voting” party. When confronted about their ideology, each party gets really defensive; and when you might be stupid enough to point out another party’s viewpoints, they generally will point out that it’s you, that are, actually, stupid.

        Reasoning does absolutely no good; they are emphatically right and others are categorically wrong. And to prove that they are correct, they resort to belittling, mocking and insulting anyone’s different affiliations and viewpoints. One party is considered conservative, the other party is called liberal and the third party, again, does not give dog doo-doo about the party of the first or the party of the second part. Election winners (of any party) are the people who are governing and running our country, from dog catcher all the way up to the White House and you’ve got to live with them because, supposedly, the majority of somebody has voted them in, so, naturally (because some dumb majority said so) they are large, in charge and not listening to any arguments to the contrary about how right they deservedly are.

        BAM! And, they will not only argue their points but get as uppity as a crawfish that has escaped the pot, because you are wrong (even if you kinda agree with them) and you need to listen to what they have to say and what they have to do because it’s ‘for your own good’ (and they have the votes to prove it). Obviously, if you didn’t vote for them and they won anyway, you are wrong, naïve, ill informed and, again, stupid.

        The first two parties will watch the news, keep up with market trends and generally ignore their constituents and concentrate their actions on the donors and donations that they’ve received or hope to receive. The third party will ignore it all because they don’t care, it doesn’t concern them, there’s nothing they can do about anything anyhow and, besides, they’re not going to vote anyway. Be glad that you’re not married to a politician (oh, you are? Sorry.)

        “Cut down that tree and pave paradise to put up a parking lot” or “save the trees, the bees and birds and give me spots on my apples” or thirdly “I could care less, never been there and it’s not my tree; and oh, will there be a place to get ice cream?”

        Doubt me? Here’s some facts: voter turnout in 2024 was 63.9 percent; in 2020 it was 66.6 percent (cfr.org). 2020 was the highest voter turnout, percentage wise, since 1900. Seriously, a full third of eligible voters belong to the ‘who gives a rat turd?’ party. Yep.

        Mormons and white Catholics and other Protestants (especially evangelicals) mostly vote conservative; Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants and others (Jewish, Muslims) and the unaffiliated (with atheists and agnostics leading the pack) mostly lean liberal. (pewresearch.org).

        Well functioning democracies are more inclusive (dirty word now) and have higher voter turnout; ease of registration and with healthy electoral competition, should and usually does increase voter turnout (ucsb.edu).

        In Australia, where 98.2 percent of adults are eligible voters, if you didn’t vote in a statewide election you’ll receive a letter asking you to explain why; if you don’t have a valid and sufficient reason, you will be fined (wa.gov.au). There are 22 other countries where voting is mandatory (pbs.org).    

        So let’s look at what mandatory voting would incur. Immediately it would incur outrage, indignation and the scream from the masses that it is their right not to vote. You might point out that that reasoning is exactly what the masses screamed when they were first told that they would have to pay income tax, contribute to Social Security and more recently they would have to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. Or that they would have to have a license and insurance to drive a motorized vehicle (sober). Or pay rent to a landlord; or if they own a house, pay the note on time or get out.

        Mandatory voting would mean that everyone would have to have an opinion as to who gets to make laws, establish policies and provide for the common defense. If we had mandatory voting there would be larger targeted audiences to sway and big donors would have to do more than just give campaign donations to the politician that could return them the biggest favors. It would make it harder to steal an election because everyone would be watching. It would be great to see a very strong independent party that would force both now major parties to ‘get up on their hind legs’.

        I believe that someone who doesn’t vote still has opinions, because the people that I know that don’t vote still complain about the politicians that other people voted for and while we might say “if you don’t vote, you can’t complain” they counter with “because I don’t vote, I can complain about the choices that you made!”

        I am also in the habit, when the candidate that I voted for doesn’t win, of blaming the people that didn’t take the time to get out and vote; or the folks that voted for a candidate that didn’t stand the chance of a snowball in hell, out of spite for the other candidates who (debatably) they thought were incompetent and worthy of ignoring. There should be a ‘none of the above’ selection.

        It’s a conundrum, a Catch-22 and a ‘damned if you do; damned if you don’t’ situation. One thing I’ve learned, in the contract of life, there is no sanity clause.