5 Signs the United States Is Undergoing a Coup - James Fallows

[Drunken Irishman]

22. It doesn't matter. They were divided enough...

Voter turnout for '00 was just 51.3% in '00 - only a point better than it was in 1996 (a far less contentious and close election). Most liberals, and average Americans, were apathetic to the whole process because you had an entire agenda pushed to make Bush & Gore look essentially like the same candidate. Even SNL, in their debate sketches, made fun of this by having both constantly agree with each other's point.

Liberals don't deserve all the blame, but they do deserve some of it because the mentality that led to that apathy was widely used by more known liberals back then (Nader, Michael Moore, Bill Maher).

I'll concede Gore does deserve blame, too, for his campaign. But let's not pretend this couldn't have all been avoided. Instead, so many fooled themselves into believing Gore was no different than Bush, which led to a pathetic % of the overall vote actually voting (to put that into perspective, 56.8 voted in the last election). The problem isn't that people are stealing elections, the problem is that NO ONE CARES. When turnout can't even reach 60% in very contested elections, we're fucked.

'68 was the last time Americans gave enough damn to head to the polls in solid numbers. It's pathetic. And it's that misinformation out there, how there is no difference between either party, that leads to Republicans getting into power and then absolutely decimating the political landscape, therefore making it THAT much harder for Democrats to rebuild when they inevitably regain power - which leads to more apathy because it didn't happen fast enough and then more Republicans getting into power, doing more devastation and pushing us further and further back...as has been the case ever since Lyndon Johnson left office.