[aaronem]

Roughly 125 million people voted in the last presidential election. Had I been among them, I'd therefore have had roughly 1/125,000,000 of a say in who gained the office. Perhaps, to a homeopath, such a marvelous dilution of political power might leave something meaningful in its wake. Not being a homeopath myself, I find it somewhat less than compelling.

I fail to see how resignation in the face of inevitable powerlessness can be anything other than healthy. "How our society governs itself" is a subject over which very few people have, or might gain, any sort of influence; not being one of those people, and having neither desire nor reasonable prospect of joining their ranks, the profligate expenditure of mental and physical effort, to say nothing of precious and irreplaceable time, to pursue the meaningless self-appellation of "good citizenship", strikes me as falling well within the realm of foolishness.

Local politics, depending on where one happens to live, may well present a more worthwhile prospect. In my own case, and being that I live in Baltimore -- a city whose corruption is almost as famous as it is nigh-boundless -- I see little more reason to involve myself on the local level than on the national. Those of a temperament for politics, and who find themselves living in places where local politics are other than an Augean stable of gerrymandering and nest-feathering, might be well advised to involve themselves.

[untog]

Roughly 125 million people voted in the last presidential election. Had I been among them, I'd therefore have had roughly 1/125,000,000 of a say in who gained the office.

Naturally, that isn't true at all. The President gets all the attention but they can't do much without the House of Representatives and the Senate's approval. Your vote for representatives in those houses is worth a lot more than 1/125,000,000.

If you wanted to have a greater effect, you could get involved. Help campaign for the candidate you favour, effectively multiplying your vote by however many people you convince of your case. Or if you really wanted to make a difference you could run for office yourself.

But yeah, local politics is messy and difficult. It's a lot easier to say you're above it and not do anything.

[aaronem]

The population of my congressional district, as of 2010, was about six hundred and sixty thousand. I grant this is three orders of magnitude smaller than the voting population of the United States as a whole; I don't grant that 1/660,000 of a say, in who represents my district in the House, is worth much more, in practical terms, than 1/125,000,000.

The population of my state is about six million. I'm not seeing much value in 1/6,000,000 of a say in who represents my state in the Senate, either.

"Get involved!" you say, as though it were that simple. I've known people who were, and my observation has been that what might start as a hobby soon enough grows to absorb their entire lives, while providing no obvious benefit either to their own well-being, or in the cause to which they so completely give themselves. Having also known people who fell foul of heroin, I'd have to say that, while a political habit isn't quite as damaging overall, the difference is a lot narrower than one might expect, and the similarity certainly doesn't militate in favor of either.

[rayiner]

Contrast your viewpoint with those of a very politically powerful group: the baby boomers. The U.S. is more or less exactly what you would expect taking a composite of that group's viewpoints: liberal with Social Security benefits, tough on crime, projecting a tough foreign policy abroad, etc. It always amazes me that there is so little light that can be seen between my mom's political viewpoints and the status quo. And why is that the case? Because she votes.

And if you're the younger, more liberal type that commonly frequents HN, then frankly you're an ideological minority and it's pointless for you to vote. And really, it is by design that we don't let ideological minorities have their way.

[mturmon]

Your analysis does not take into account the 2000 election.

[aaronem]

In saying this, you seem to express the opinion that I've missed something crucial. Would you like to explain what that is?

If anything, I should think that having seen the express popular will set at naught, by the actions of a few professional gerrymanderers, would add even more point to my analysis.

[mturmon]

You could take the outcome as indication that the popular will is always thwarted -- I'm not here to convince you otherwise, and your wording indicates you are up on the soapbox (Augean stables, really?). There's no outer bound to cynicism.

My interpretation is that a thousand votes in Florida would have swung the election, so Florida voters and abstainers were quite powerful indeed.

Often it's hard to tell for sure which election will be like that. The California ballot propositions (where I live) are an excellent example.

[aaronem]

I'm not terribly much in favor of mob rule in the first place, but even if I were, it wouldn't further enamor me to see events like the result of the 2000 election. Yes, a relative few voters in Florida found themselves, by accident of history, in possession of political power far outstripping what their numbers would suggest, but given that no one can either plan for or expect such historical accidents, how can they possibly benefit anyone who desires either political power or predictable government? (If predictability isn't considered a cardinal virtue of government, I'm not sure why it isn't.)

And, yes, Augean stables, really. Call it soapboxing if you like, but I'm hardly the only one to express a similar opinion of Baltimore city politics.

[mturmon]

My point is that individual voters can be powerful. The fact that you don't know, in advance, if this is the occasion does not alter the point.