2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumAlienated voters: the 63%
Some of them I've met over the years--
A: I helped a woman in 2008 who was having trouble with the elections department not acknowledging her as a voter. She hadn't voted since 1992, but told me that 2008 was really important. I'd bet good money that 1992 and 2008 are the only times she has ever voted in the last 30 years or so--both years were characterized by new faces running for president, which got her to hope that something might change to make her like less hardscrabble.
B. Just recently met a 26 year old woman who has never voted, but is the chief organizer for one of the local Seattle Sanders meet-up groups. She was too young by a hair in 2008, and nothing since then had movitevated her to get involved.
C. Doing voter registration in 2012, I met dozens of unregistered but eligible voters who had no interest in voting. One of them memorably screamed at me to get the hell off her front porch. (People that may not have been documented often said "We don't live here--we're just cleaning it for them.)
I live in a low income neighborhood, so we aren't talking about affluent people who vote well over their proportion in the general Voter alienation is a huge problem in this country. Sanders is appealing to a lot of previously alienated voters, but Clinton doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell with this demographic.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)how both parties have essentially written off those voters, rather than try to identify the source of their alienation and represent their interests. The 1% funders wouldn't approve, or something like that. Both parties seem more concerned about carving out a small slice of the electorate that can get them elected, than with pushing reforms that benefit the alienated.
mopinko
(70,265 posts)if the 99% voted, the 1% would be left howling in the wilderness.
eridani
(51,907 posts)If they get involved, THEN they will find their own reasons for continuing.