[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.