Meme: Participation

Comments

[Chanson de Roland]

Excellent! Unlike the citizens of Vladimir Putin's Russia or Xi Jinping's China, we, in the United States, are free to have some considerable say, though perhaps less than is thought or should be, over how we are governed, over who represents us in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, what our laws are, and what our institutions are and how they function. But along with each citizen's freedom to decide by voting comes the responsibilities to: (1) Vote and (2) be informed about the relevant facts about the issues and/or candidates. Based on the Editor's conceit, supra, and sound statistical data, Americans don't even satisfy the first responsibility, as voters' participation, even including voting bye mail, is less than sixty percent for even presidential elections and is far less for off-year elections. As for being informed about issues and/or candidates, Americans are better informed about the weekend sales at the shopping malls, sporting events, or the latest iPhone than they are about either candidates or issues, except for the political zealots of the Right and Left, who are zealously misinformed.