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What happened to the "red wave" ? People Voted [1]

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Date: 2022-11-11  

The Republican party and their subsidiary, the right wing media have done an incredible job in getting people to sign over their critical thinking to them so much so that democracy itself is now threatened. We have gotten used to seeing these hair splitting vote tallys which suggest on the surface that those on the extreme have been slowly moving from 20% of the population to 30% to now perhaps 50% or more.

But looks can be deceiving. In reality, only around 60% of those who could vote actually do and there's reason to believe that a large percentage of those who don't would not vote for extremists. I can't help but think about Nixon's "silent majority" in this context. This is particularly true for the young who have largely eschewed voting and participation in government (hence our rule by octogenarians).

But when even a small portion of the 40% who don't normally vote turn out and vote,the Republicans are in trouble. I can't help but wonder if the Republican demagogue machine, like the Russians in Ukraine, may be near culmination. That is, their demagoguery and voter suppression has reached peak success and as long as we can up voter participation even a little they will ultimately lose out.

I say this because it seems likely that every MAGA republican eligible to vote likely did turn out to vote. Whereas it's likely that the majority of those who didn't vote are more centrist and unlikely to embrace the current Republican party. Remember also that the secret of the Republican machine is to always keep their base enraged. Otherwise they may lose the motivation to vote. This requires coming up with ever more outrageous behavior to prevent them from "cooling off" which in itself is clearly unsustainable over a long period of time.

I may be overly optimistic. After all, they still have the electoral college but perhaps there's a small chance the right wing disinformation machine may be near to having converted all that it can convert in which case, small incremental gains in voter participation can hold them at bay permanently.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/11/2135372/-What-happened-to-the-red-wave-People-Voted

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