Quote:
Originally Posted by Isbjørn
But... why? I'm from Europe, so I don't understand what the hell is going on when Americans are interested in politics but won't vote, for some reason.
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Look at it this way: you live in a country of five million people, while we live in one of three-hundred million. My one vote is worth 1/60 of what yours is.
Also, many European countries have a parliamentary system, where the number of votes for each party decide the percentage of seats they get in the legislature, so even if your party doesn't "win", your voice was still heard. Here in America, with our winner-take-all voting system, if you vote Democrat, but a Republican wins, you've pretty much just wasted your time. Sure, the percentage a candidate wins by can show how much support he has from the general public, but the candidate is still going to ignore the opposition for the most part.
And when you're constantly being bombarded by negative campaign ads that make the person being targeted look like a scumbag, and the person endorsing it/being endorsed by it look like just as big of a scumbag for allowing it to happen, you kind of lose interest in hearing what either of them have to say, cause you already know that whatever comes out of their mouth is likely to start with "Well, my opponent blah blah blah...". I don't know if negative campaign ads are as pervasive or ridiculous in your country, but over here, I could probably count on one hand the number of ads I'll see each election that don't concentrate on trying to make the other candidate look like the Antichrist.