Why Some Eligible Citizens Will Not Vote in 2020

The New York Times interviewed some eligible citizens who will not vote in 2020. The main reasons boil down to (i) distrust in both parties and politics, and (ii) a wish to avoid the anger and nasty tone of it all. The latter group have succumbed to the intentional goal of the radical right to get as many potential voters to not vote as they can by any means possible. By making politics unpleasant, the radical right has probably driven millions of voters out of politics entirely. That constitutes a huge political win for the right because most of these people would probably vote democratic if they weren't so alienated. The NYT writes:

"But Ms. Fedrick, who works two jobs, at a hotel and at a department store, does not trust either of the two main political parties, because nothing in her 31 years of life has led her to believe that she could. She says they abandon voters like “a bad mom or dad who promises to come and see you, and I’m sitting outside with my bags packed and they never show up.”

That is why Ms. Fedrick does not regret her decision in 2016 to skip the voting booth. In fact, she plans to repeat it this year — something that she and a friend have started to hide from people they know.

“We said we’re just going to lie, like, ‘Oh yeah, I voted,’” she said. “I don’t feel like getting crucified for what I think.”

An analysis of Census Bureau survey data from the 2016 election shows a deep class divide: Americans who did not vote were more likely to be poor, less likely to have a college degree, and more likely to be a single parent than the people who voted. They were also less likely to be in the labor force.

But with razor-thin margins in a number of states last time, nonvoters have taken on outsize importance: Even a small victory in converting some of them may tip the scales.

They [non-voters] expressed a profound distrust of politics and doubted their vote would have an effect. They felt a sense of foreboding about the country and saw politics as one of the main forces doing the threatening. Many were not particularly partisan, and said they shrank from people who were.

“I try to avoid it because it gets angry and nasty,” said Susan Miller, 42, a waitress at Compton’s Pancake House in Stroudsburg, who said she had voted once in her life, for Barack Obama in 2008.

Like many people interviewed for this article, Ms. Miller was scrambling to pay rent and buy groceries. Monroe County’s unemployment rate stood at around 13 percent in August, as the coronavirus pandemic bit into the county’s tourism industry. Her tips have fallen by half and she is now working for Instacart to make up the difference. Two close relatives have died of Covid-19. “Politics? It’s the least of my worries. I’m just trying to make it through,” she said. 

Marriage mattered, too: Just 45 percent of single women who had children and were eligible to vote cast ballots compared with 70 percent of married mothers.

Jennifer Martin, 46, a single mother waiting in line in her car at the Pleasant Valley Ecumenical Network food pantry in Sciota, Pa., said the last time she voted she was in her 20s. Politics, she said, has little relevance to her life. The two political parties seemed about the same. “I work at a day care where they pay their workers nothing,” she said. “That’s why I have to come to places like this to feed my family.” Might the election change things? “I’m not interested in it,” she said.

Ms. Sanchez is part of a demographic that also had low turnout in 2016: American-born Hispanics. She said that in 2008 she swallowed her cynicism and cast the first vote in her life, for Mr. Obama. “I had to just close my eyes and say, ‘If this is fake, I don’t care. I want to be part of this.’” But she did not vote for him again. Politicians are noisy, but ultimately of no use. “They rent space in my brain and they frustrate me, but in the end, they do what they want anyway,” she said."

That speaks for itself. These people have lost trust, hope and/or just want to avoid the anger and nastiness. Some fear even voicing their opinions because they do not want to lose friendships. They just want to live their lives as they have been. Sure, most of them appear to want their lives to be better, but they no longer believe that will happen.