President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Glad to see blogs have finally filled the "shady preachers who might have influenced the president's political philosophy" beat. That job seems to have been vacant for nine years.

 

For good or ill, I always got the impression that Obama went to church jussst enough to keep up appearances and did not seem particularly influenced by religion at all. As far as Jeremiah Wright, he has/had some repugnant views but I've never seen serious accusations that he was a grifter.

 

Good start, and then you lost it completely.

 

Looked up the numbers on that, and that's a weird trend line. It was consistently 70-80 percent until 1904, stayed in the 60s until 1920, and then dropped precipitously from 61.6 percent in 1916 to 49.2 in 1920 and has never recovered to previous levels. It's stayed in the 50-60 percent range ever since.
I get why it would be that low for a decade or so (lots of newly eligible voters who didn't register or vote for one reason or another), but is that enough of a statistical shift to influence the number for 100 years? Or has it been other things that keep resetting the process like the Great Depression and then the civil rights movement in the 1960s?
Surely there's a statistical reason for it beyond apathy?

Voter turnout in the United States presidential elections - Wikipedia

 

That has been my point since I turned 18.
If I cast a ballot but refuse to choose from an array of bad choices for a given office - president, governor, whatever - that should not a non-vote. That dissatisfaction with all candidates should be counted.
Perhaps a 'No candidate suffices' should be an option, to distinguish from actual disinterest.

That should be counted, and I'd love to see the numbers if it were.

 

There seems to be a widespread feeling of "my vote does not make any difference" in this country.

 

It is too bad there isn't an "I don't understand the concept of elections" column when results are released. You'd think people would learn that when they were kids when they learn they don't always get what they want.

 

Please be specific. What should he have done.

 

A constant theme of the RWSM.

 

Weekend elections might help a wee bit with turnout too.

 

Elections in many other countries usually only have 1-3 races or ballot measures. Weekday voting isn't the only concern.

 

A lot of non-presidential elections in this country are that way, and without any hard numbers in front of me I'd say those have a lot lower turnout. People look at them as small or not worth their time. Voting for a dozen or more offices in a presidential election year doesn't seem like a primary reason for low turnout.