PrimeWire

I’m a nerd. This discussion made me curious about actual numbers so I went to look at reported data. 333M genpop US citizens in 2020, 252M of genpop were voting age in 2020 (75%), 168M of total were actually registered to vote in 2020 (50% of genpop, 67% of all voting age), 155M of total actually went out and voted for some issue or other in 2020 (46% of genpop, 92% of registered). You can draw whatever conclusions you want about why 2/3 of people eligible to vote did not vote at all. Your numbers are pretty close.

Some votes make no difference, some votes have significant impact on you whether you like it or not, and your vote actually is meaningful. People do not vote every office on the ticket for a presidential election. A significant number of registered voters go to vote only on things like millages that will raise their local taxes, weed legalization, reproductive freedom, state and local representatives. Which idiot will run their school board and ban books, which idiots are running to turn half the city roads into expensive and completely unused double bike lanes (those people won and flipped council by a mere 29 votes), which idiots are running because they believe property owners who have rentable space but choose not to rent it should pay heavy fines, because baristas have a constitutional right to live within a five minute walking distance from work, there’s not enough affordable housing right downtown, and they are too precious to ride an almost free municipal bus to work from a neighborhood they actually can afford. 56% of registered voters in my state voted to legalize weed, the people in my state are now free to light up a spliff all day with no harassment from The Man and my city now has more weed shops than restaurants.

Whatever you believe about criminal syndicates running the United States (accurate) there are still cases where your vote is highly relevant. My mother was a poll worker all of her married life and I grew up sitting on the floor of a gymnasium for 24 hours straight six times a year. End of rant.

Awesome show! Jeremy Renner is criminally underestimated.