Bring on the torches and pitchforks?

I'm trying to think of what would be the equivalent today in the U.S. of storming the Bastille. Granted, even back in 1789 in France it was primarily a symbolic gesture -- there were only 7 political prisoners in the prison at the time -- but even so. . . just where we would go if we wanted to do the equivalent today? Storm the prison where Leonard Peltier is held, whichever one that might be? Try to tear down the headquarters of the National Security Administration (they do seem to be spying on everyone)? Attack the White House? Riot at the Capitol? Is there any one place in this country that would be sufficiently symbolic to merit having a mob armed with the proverbial torches and pitchforks attack it? Even the most hated of government agencies (e.g., the Internal Revenue Service) are sufficiently amorphous that no one building really seems to capture the flavor necessary for a good symbolic act. Granted, the occasional lone nut will plot an attack on a federal building, but they don't seem to have much popular support. If they did, they wouldn't qualify as the occasional lone nut; they'd be leading a crowd of like-minded persons.

In any case, nothing is likely to be stormed by anyone any time soon. With a few exceptions, Americans are too apathetic to be outraged by much of anything. If they weren't, Occupy Wall Street would still be protesting and there'd be a lot more Moral Mondays happening around the country.

A distinct lack of enthusiasm

Could this be the year when they hold an election and no one bothers to vote? I'm sensing a distinct lack of enthusiasm for both major parties. We just completed a 1400-mile drive from Upper Michigan to southeast Texas. I think I could count the number of bumper stickers I saw supporting Romney on the fingers on one hand and have a few fingers left over. Not that Obama fared much better -- there were more Obama stickers, but most of them looked like they'd been on the vehicles since 2008 -- they weren't this year's graphics.

The same was true of yard signs -- they were close to nonexistent, and the ones we did see tended to be almost 100% concerned with local or state elections. In fact, the highest number of yard signs we saw were fairly close to here -- coming down Texas Highway 96, we saw a lot of signs for two candidates apparently competing for the position of district judge. Nothing for any other office seeker, though, on either a state of national level, and it was like that for most of the drive.

Missouri probably had the most signage out -- and it was unintentionally amusing. There'd be a whole clump of signs for Republican candidates for various state offices, like Peter Kinder (currently lieutenant governor and hoping to get re-elected), and then a few miles down the Interstate, well removed from all the other Republicans, there'd be a lonely sign for Todd Akin, the Republican running for U.S. Senate. Akin is, of course, the guy who made the mistake of saying what he was actually thinking by claiming that if it's a legitimate rape a woman won't get pregnant. It's a medieval belief that's apparently fairly common among some persons whose intellectual development stopped in about the 12th century, but it's also something most  Republicans are smart enough to avoid saying publicly. Since Akin opened his mouth, other Republicans have been treating him like he has leprosy -- and that apparently holds true even for their yard signs. Kinder et al. don't seem to want to remind voters they're part of the same party as Akin.

Context is irrelevant

The context doesn't matter -- if the media or the opposition can't manage to find a sound bite to lift out of context, they'll just do some creative splicing or bizarre misinterpretation.People are always critical of politicians for being vague or vacuous, but as soon as a candidate says something that's an actual declarative sentence, no matter how mundane or seemingly innocuous ("Rain is wet"), some spinmeister will figure out a way to make it sound like that one statement means the candidate is one step away from either turning the United States into a socialist workers' paradise or handing everything in the country to the Koch brothers and their ilk. Even saying you're for something is now immediately twisted to suggest that you're just blowing smoke while secretly plotting to do the exact opposite. It's a broken system. No wonder so many voters are discovering the joys of apathy, the quiet rebellion of the powerless.

If you don't vote, you can't complain

Ever wonder why politics in this country is so screwed up? Here's one possible explanation: most people don't bother to vote in the elections that count. Once every four years, we show up for the general election and cast a ballot for President, and maybe once every two years we drop by the polls to vote for a Congressional candidate. The rest of the time we're conspicuous in our absence. We hear it over and over --  change begins at the local level; you can't vote just once every four years and expect it to make a difference -- but then when a school board election, a millage issue, or even a primary comes along, we stay home. 

Or at least most of us stay home. Who goes to the polls for the elections most of us ignore? The hard-core fanatics, the true believers, the fire-breathing ideologues who will seize upon any opportunity, big or small, to push their agendas. I started thinking about this issue after I heard a reminder on the radio about a special election in Hancock this week. It didn't affect me (Hancock is a small city about 45 miles from here), but I did find myself wondering just what the voter turnout would be. I served on the election board in Baraga County for awhile, and I can remember times when we poll workers would get to sit there for hours playing UNO or Yahtzee because so few voters were wandering in.

Then I heard the results from Indiana and North Carolina. In reporting the Indiana Republican primary results, the news media made it sound as though it was a hotly contested race for the Senate nomination in Indiana, and maybe in one sense it was -- but when you have news reports noting voter turnout in one county at 16% of eligible voters, you have to wonder just how much the voters actually understood about the consequences of staying home. One report quoted a poll worker who said it was over an hour after the polls opened before anyone showed up to vote. I can understand people thinking that the presidential nomination is no longer an issue, but that wasn't the only thing on the ballot.

As for North Carolina. . . the big issue there was amending the state constitution to prohibit gays getting married. The issue got a tremendous amount of press, some really big names campaigned for or against it, it was a Big Deal. So where were the voters? Not at the polls. This news report starts off by predicting record turnouts for the election. The truly sad part comes when you see just what a record turnout might be.

The divisive nature of Amendment One was obvious Tuesday at polling places across North Carolina, as elections officials said the turnout could be the biggest for a primary voting date in decades. 

A number of county, state and federal races are on the Democratic and Republican primary tickets, but it is Amendment One -- the issue that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and not permit the legalization of gay marriages -- that is luring voters. Officials at three precincts visited by The Observer at midday said turnout has been steady since the polls opened at 6:30 a.m. They said the turnout was a bit heavier than they had expected. Mecklenburg County elections officials initially said they expected a 30 percent turnout, but that might prove to be low. 

Gary Bartlett, the state elections supervisor, told NewsChannel 36, the Observer's news partner, late Tuesday morning that the state-wide turnout could exceed 37 percent. That would make 2012's turnout the biggest for a primary in a quarter-century, Bartlett said. 

Thirty-seven percent! Well, if only a little of a third of the eligible voters show up to vote, what do you think the odds are that those voters are going to be the tinfoil hat types, the fanatics, the hardcore no-compromise-on-anything ideologues? 

Will 2012 set new records for low voter turnout?

It's looking like the monied interests in the Republican Party are going to succeed in buying the nomination for Romney, a candidate whose main selling point seems to be that he's Not Obama. Over on the Democratic side, the nominee will, of course, be the incumbent President. Somehow I can't see voters of either persuasion  or, for that matter, the much touted and lusted after independents getting particularly excited about voting either one. Votes for Romney in the general election won't be votes for Romney; they'll be votes against Obama, and vice versa. A lack of enthusiasm kept a lot of Democrats away from the polls in 2010 -- what happens in 2012 if neither side can work up the energy to vote?

No ambition

Maybe it's the lingering effects of the "spring ahead" nonsense with the clock, but I've spent the whole week  feeling like I'm only half awake. No ambition whatsoever, and definitely feeling brain dead.

The enthusiasm gap

Election Day draws ever closer, the political mudslinging grows more intense daily, and my enthusiasm for wandering over to an early voting location dwindles a little more with each passing moment.  The one and only person on the ballot I actually want to vote for is going to win regardless of anything I do -- Congressman Lewis is safely ensconced in a solidly Democratic district; his competition always comes in the primary, not the general.  I probably will drag my reluctant ass to the polls, if only for the reason that it does feel good after spending 4 years in Nebraska to be confident that the candidate I support will actually win, but for sure I understand why the average voter has so little desire to pull the figurative lever for anyone this year. 

Last night Ed Schultz's totally nonscientific survey question for his viewers was something along the lines of  "Has this been the most hate-filled campaign of all time?"  No doubt tonight's question will be something equally challenging, like "Is water wet?"  The various pundits and political operatives keep talking about the enthusiasm gap, and what can they do to get voters fired up enough to go to the polls -- well, how about putting some serious effort into getting candidates to stop engaging in a race to the bottom with ads that spend more time screaming "I hate Mexicans more than my opponent!!" than they do providing anything substantive to convince me the candidate has more on his or her mind than deporting day laborers? 

I would also love to see a Republican politician who was willing to admit that voting for him or her isn't going to do a thing to remove Nancy Pelosi from office.  Every time I see an ad for a Republican running for Congress, I find myself thinking, wow, are the teabaggers going to be pissed when they elect Joe Schmoe and then wake up the following day to discover that Ms. Pelosi is still representing California's 8th District.  Who could have known that voting for some schmuck in Georgia or Wisconsin would have absolutely no influence on what happened at the polls in San Francisco?  

Then again, when you have Republican candidates and office holders who seem to be in a competition to see who can provide the most blatant display of ignorance, I shouldn't be surprised they're assuming their supporters are even dumber than they are.