Yeah, I know this actually came out last spring. But in this iteration of the news they keep using the word “startling.” Somebody is actually startled by this???
It’s rather like being startled by the sun rising in the east. A chancre turning out to be syphilitic. Or a politician lying. Still the study (early draft here) could be worth sharing with your “vote-to-make-a-difference” friends. Full study due out this fall, so we’re not months behind the news here; we’re months ahead of the next round of shock! Dismay! And we must DO SOMETHING about this!
(H/T MtK)
I am truly shocked.
We should vote on whether that’s a good thing.
How many billions you got to back that vote, Joel?
The other 97,000 NRA instructors and I are winning the war for gun-rights. I can live with that.
Here’s your sign…. In a country where national elections are decided by monied power brokers behind the scenes and their media, with a minority of the population participating for appearances sake, you have zero effect on policy. Local voters in my area have little effect on policy, it is decided by business groups that are tied to the city council.
The growing number of those who simply decide not to comply… who arrange their lives to be least affected by the “policy” of the controllers… I suspect that will ultimately be the greatest influence on both society and “policy” in the long run.
No “government” can operate very long without at least the passive cooperation of those they desire to control.
“The solution, say the scholars, is a reinvigorated and engaged electorate.”
In other words, vote more. Yeah, that’ll help.
I remember in my early days I used to get caught up in civic organizations to try to have an influence over what the city or the county commission wanted to do with the tax dollars they had stolen. They would put together “public involvement” projects to get people involved (buffaloed). I even at one time was the Washington County citizen’s representative to the Portland Metro Technical Advisory Council (I think I got that name right).
It was all nonsense. We had no influence. We however did a good job, for a while anyway, convincing ourselves we had helped run the show.