[JumpCrisscross]

> if we keep telling them everyone believes in this stuff and your vote doesn't count and so on

I don’t know if you can fix lazy. Turning out new voters basically happens once a generation. The rest tell themselves tales that their vote could never matter, and in doing that, subtly endorse the status quo.

[tombert]

This is kind of why I ultimately find cynicism to be inherently lazy. This is coming from a very cynical (and often lazy) person.

It takes no effort to be cynical, I can tell myself "everything sucks and I shouldn't care because nothing matters anyway" and justify not doing anything I want. I can justify not voting, I can justify not helping someone if I see them struggling on the street, I can justify not even improving myself.

In the last couple years I have been trying my best to override my cynical tendencies because ultimately I think that they are bad for me. I vote in every election I am able to because even if it's infinitesimal, I at least tried to do something to avoid whom I deem bad people getting into office.

[JumpCrisscross]

Agree. And look, being cynical and just minding your own matters is fine. It means the system is working well enough for that person that doing anything isn’t actually worth it. But those people are also electorally—and more broadly, politically—irrelevant. So if you’re trying to do something, betting on them tends to be a losing pitch.

[yoyohello13]

I relate to the feeling. I am extremely cynical. I fully believe the world is fucked and we are in for a very turbulent 50-100 years. I still work to improve myself and the world because WTF else are you going to do? At least doing something feels better than doing nothing.

[tombert]

I've just grown to really respect older people who manage to stay excited and optimistic. It's so much easier to become a cynic, and I think it required effort on their end to try and be a positive person.

[forgetfreeman]

Your comment is extremely reductionist and reverses causality for a large number of voters. Both political parties have multi-decade track records of aggressively supporting pro-corporate political agendas at the expense of their constituency. So in light of literal decades of watching prospects decline regardless of which party is currently in power many voters (correctly) conclude that their vote will not lead to meaningful change.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Both political parties have multi-decade track records of aggressively supporting pro-corporate political agendas at the expense of their constituency

Someone only tuning into general elections and making this complaint is either not intellectually there or plain lazy. Very few places in this country have zero competitive elections on the ballot. And none exist where calling electeds and showing up to advocate don’t move the needle. Doing those things takes effort, however, and I concede that for a lot of people that effort isn’t worth it since they’re comfortable enough—personally—with the status quo.

The flip side is that leaves a lot more room for everyone else. It’s genuinely surprising how accessible power in America is once you start wielding it. That sucks when nobody is watching but a few paid interests. It gets interesting when you find yourself, repeatedly, as the only person in the room with the levers.

[forgetfreeman]

That elections are "competitive" is utterly irrelevant in a political system where local, state, and federal legislation is almost exclusively drafted by lobbyists. Lobbyists who in addition to supplying pre-written legislation also supply staffers with pre-formatted position statements to distribute to anyone who bothers contacting their office about said.

In practice that "competition" you seem so taken by produces nice sound bites and some column inches on whatever culture war rag is being waved in the face of the citizenry, and literally nothing of substance that addresses any of the myriad slow burning economic and systemic crises that have been building for the last 40 years.

Using agriculture as a microcosm for the larger economy there has been nothing proposed much less ratified to address the complete chokehold Monsanto, John Deer, Cargill, and Tyson Foods have on every aspect of the agricultural industry . And they've had literal decades to make a move.

Princeton University released a study 16 years ago that concluded the US was a de facto oligarchy and if anything legislative capture has only deepened in the US since then. Hell at the local level I've watched the county planning board float a ballot initiative to greenlight a major construction project which was soundly rejected by local voters. Net result: 5 years later they broke ground on the project anyway. So you can tell me there's movable needles out there until you're blue in the face, let's see some reciepts.

[myvoiceismypass]

> So in light of literal decades of watching prospects decline regardless of which party is currently in power

Quick question: how many _months_ total in the last quarter century have the Dems had the Presidency, Senate, and House at the same time.

The answer is 47. Forty seven total months. Out of 300. We got the ACA (Obamacare) and the Inflation Reduction Act during those brief time periods, too.

[forgetfreeman]

The ACA was poorly camouflaged pork for the insurance industry and healthcare statistics have continued to decline since it was passed. Who did the IRA pay off?