2016 Postmortem

for president, that's not apathy; that's not liking either candidate. Not liking Trump doesn't require a whole lot of analysis but not liking Clinton is another issue. I get it that 25 years of negative propaganda from the right wing took its toll, but even if people were influenced by that and didn't like Hillary for the wrong reasons (or even the right reasons, for that matter), how could they not see that Trump was a thousand times worse? There's always a lot of complaining about having to vote for "the lesser of two evils," but why would anyone vote for the greater evil? (Note: I am not saying Hillary is evil or that I even think she's evil, but that's been the GOP claim since forever).

Where apathy comes in, though, is when voters are so put off by the whole process that they don't even bother to show up. I think the intense negativity of this campaign certainly had that effect on some - the whole "A plague on both your houses" feeling; to hell with 'em all, fuck the whole process. The Dems in particular need to take a close look at why many of their usual supporters stayed home this time. The GOP know that whenever voter turnout is low, they win.

That is why they've been trying so hard in some states to keep certain voters (and we know who those voters are) from voting. Some of what might appear to be apathy could be attributed to voter suppression in some places. It's no coincidence that one of the highest turnout states, Minnesota, is also one of the easiest states to vote in; and Minnesota has voted for the Dem candidate every year since 1972. But this year, even though Clinton won here, it was a squeaker (that narrow margin was itself unusual), and the GOP picked up seats in the state legislature. So even with easy voting and little evidence of apathy here, something else was going on. I have my own theory, but that and $2.50 will get me a double-skim latte at Starbucks so I won't mention it here.

Point is, voter apathy isn't the whole problem, but whatever it was the Dems need to get their shit together.