Imagine if, rather than blaming the "far left", (whatever you think that is),

[thucythucy]

98. FDR was able to pursue "large change"

to the extent that he did because a third of the nation was unemployed, the economy was dead in the water for three full years, the banks were facing universal collapse, and the Midwest was facing the worst ecological disaster in our history thus far (the Great Dust Bowl). I don't think we'd want to live through another era like that, would we?

Then too, he had the support of white Southerners, who were Democrats solely because Lincoln was a Republican. The "Solid South" was a greater Democratic bastion then than the west coast is today. Since that time all the southern white racists have crossed over to the KGOP. Should we try to get them back?

Also, many people today assume that the social safety net that FDR helped install is something inevitable and permanent. They won't know it can be destroyed, until it is. Same as younger women who just assume that abortion will always be legal. Until they need one and it isn't.

BTW, the "far left" of the 1930s considered FDR little better than a racist reactionary war monger. Folks like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie wrote editorials about how FDR wanting to reinstate the draft (in 1940, in response to the Nazis taking Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, France) was inciting war to "enrich the ruling class." This was the standard Communist Party line, and the USCP had quite the following then. It wasn't until the Soviet Union was attacked in June, 1941, that this hunk of the US far left finally started to support FDR's foreign policy.

I hugely admire FDR, as I do JFK, but I think there are a lot of people on the left today who view them both through rose colored glasses. The far left HATED FDR--some still do because they blame him for "saving capitalism." The far left HATED JFK as a Cold Warrior, Joe McCarthy supporter, and civil rights equivocator.

As for why so many Americans don't vote?

Voter suppression

Election Day on a work day, and many workers can't get off work, arrange child care, or whatever else they need to do to stand in line for hours

Crappy weather--having our elections the first Tuesday in November made sense in 1788--when most people were farmers and couldn't take the time to vote until the harvest was in, but makes ZERO sense today

gerrymandering

bread and circuses (especially the circuses, i.e. professional sports, NASCAR, etc.)

AND, finally, celebrities like Sarandon and provocateurs like Stein and Nader who spend their time running around shouting "There's no difference, they're all the same, what's the point" who get a huge amount of attention because....well, because they're famous, and many people in this country are swayed by that.

Addressing ALL those problems will do a lot to change things. Constantly beating up on the Democratic Party won't.