Kara Schneck: On Apathy

OK, so this chapter on voter apathy struck my interest particularly because in McKee’s section on “Apathetic History” (176-181) we find that things haven’t changed much over the last few centuries, and if anything, voting rates are up and fairly stable over the last century.  What particularly riled me was that the voting rates were the highest in the early to mid-1800s not because of an informed electorate but because of sensationalist and entertainment politics (McKee 179).  The fact that voting rates went down when reformers sought to make politics more educational and informative just made me angry—are people really so lazy and disinterested that they will only respond to immediately gratifying political approaches.  This attitude is obviously one of the causes of such long and overly rhetorical political campaigns.  I was reading in the Parade and in response to the question “is our election process too long?,”  98% of readers said yes.  Their ideas were interesting, and I well agree with them:

“Limit campaigning to three to six months and install the new president in two weeks.  Then he or she can start on our nation’s problems right away.” –J.T., Georgetown, Tex.

“We should have a national one-day primary, then hold the election six weeks later.  Free TV time will be equally provided to the candidates by the federal government, as will equal campaign funds.” –E.D., Carpinteria, Calif.

“Make the candidates pay a 35% tax on the money they raise.  This would shorten their campaigns, and the taxes could be used for things like education or health care.” –T.V., Clifton, Colo.

“Since many of the candidates are Senators who are neglecting their jobs, we should definitely shorten the election season, and officials should also have to go on unpaid leave while they’re campaigning.” –R.R., Fairlawn, Ohio

I tend to agree with these Parade readers that voting has become overly complex, and I would extend this complexity to legislation and citizen involvement as well.  These readers give good, thought provoking suggestions to solve our election process problems, and so I would have to agree with moderns that debate is essential in the public sphere. 

Also, it is sad but true when McKee says that that the Internet’s great potential is for the most part wasted (185).  The Internet could be a wonderful forum for all kinds of essential debate, but instead I see fellow friends and schoolmates in the computer labs surfing ridiculously “pimped out” MySpace pages, where conversations are usually limited to the annoyingly shallow comments like “hey, you look fine in that new pic!” or “The new guitar hero III game is coming out this week” or the ten millionth survey someone posts on the bulletin about themselves and their secret admirers or which Sexy Superhero they are.  I wish that for once people would start talking politics and sharing experiential knowledge that would actually further human evolvement instead of this regression that I see—we will soon be like fashionable, talking apes if things don’t change.