It’s still important to push the message to not be lazy about going out and doing the thing, especially in mid-terms which get far less turnout.
But that 89mil who did not vote in 2024 is very close to the average percentage that stays home every election anyway. My point is, the sampling of those who did vote, didn’t necessarily make me think that if uninterested people did show up, that it would have gone much different.
Of the people who were actually registered and voted in 2024, a vast number of the people who voted for Trump identified as Obama voters and Bernie supporters. People had basically discarded whatever political alignment more informed voters adhere to and just looked at the price of eggs at the time and associated that with Biden/Harris, and that was the most informed opinion shaping voting habits.
People did not watch debates. They did not pay attention to large news stories. They got most of their political news from social media; tweets and facebook memes in the small amount of time they spend scrolling content that isn’t entertainment. They did not know what either candidate was advocating and largely didn’t care, most thought it didn’t effect them either way.
This is all by design, and if we want to talk to about vote manipulation, this is the biggest issue, which is there are too many fake shills and sock-puppets all over social media, even here on Lemmy, who will adopt the stupidest or most radical takes on both sides of every issue until bystanders and browsers roll their eyes at the whole thing and tune out.
There are literally millions of people in India and other countries who farm Twitter for a few dollars every month by pushing rage-bait, arguing with people, pretending to be Americans and pretending to care about our future, while sharing propaganda and memes designed to make people hate political involvement.
Our biggest problem is not turnout but engagement and information.
It’s still important to push the message to not be lazy about going out and doing the thing, especially in mid-terms which get far less turnout.
But that 89mil who did not vote in 2024 is very close to the average percentage that stays home every election anyway. My point is, the sampling of those who did vote, didn’t necessarily make me think that if uninterested people did show up, that it would have gone much different.
Of the people who were actually registered and voted in 2024, a vast number of the people who voted for Trump identified as Obama voters and Bernie supporters. People had basically discarded whatever political alignment more informed voters adhere to and just looked at the price of eggs at the time and associated that with Biden/Harris, and that was the most informed opinion shaping voting habits.
People did not watch debates. They did not pay attention to large news stories. They got most of their political news from social media; tweets and facebook memes in the small amount of time they spend scrolling content that isn’t entertainment. They did not know what either candidate was advocating and largely didn’t care, most thought it didn’t effect them either way.
This is all by design, and if we want to talk to about vote manipulation, this is the biggest issue, which is there are too many fake shills and sock-puppets all over social media, even here on Lemmy, who will adopt the stupidest or most radical takes on both sides of every issue until bystanders and browsers roll their eyes at the whole thing and tune out.
There are literally millions of people in India and other countries who farm Twitter for a few dollars every month by pushing rage-bait, arguing with people, pretending to be Americans and pretending to care about our future, while sharing propaganda and memes designed to make people hate political involvement.
Our biggest problem is not turnout but engagement and information.