That would be true if We The People were reliably informed when we showed up to cast our votes. However, in recent years, we have become detached from reality. "News media" companies pivoted away from keeping their audiences informed about things that mattered and instead focused on capturing audiences and keeping those audiences maximally engaged so that they could be sold to advertisers and otherwise exploited.
Now when people show up to the polls, they think they're voting to keep themselves safe from violent crimnals running rampant; they think they are voting to keep out the flood of strange outsiders coming to take their jobs and eat their family pets. But in reality they're voting for -- and getting -- something quite different.
Weren't the democrats criticised for campaigning on the message that voting for Trump was a significant risk to due process and democracy? I feel like every voter was aware of what happened on Jan 6th and still voted for him with some level of knowledge about that.
What a particular voter was “aware of” regarding Jan 6th and the events that caused it very much depended on where that person got their news. For example, one prominent network was found in court depositions to have knowingly reported complete BS about what Jan 6 was all about: “During pre-trial discovery, Fox News' internal communications were released, indicating that prominent hosts and top executives were aware the network was reporting false statements but continued doing so to retain viewers for financial reasons.”
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems_v._Fox....
More than ever before, people now live in news silos where they get only the news that engages their prior beliefs. And people who are in the Fox News silo have been told, repeatedly, that NPR is fake news from “far-left lunatic” Democrats. Do you remember all the air time Fox News gave to people arguing for the defunding of NPR? How much do you think a Fox News viewer is likely to trust NPR?
Think about it. If you are like the vast majority of people, almost everything you know about what is happening in the world, especially about the highest levels of government, is something you have been told from a source you trust. You are not a part of government policy decisions. You do not speak to people who are primary sources in those decisions. You know only what has been reported to you by third parties. Now imagine that you are getting those reports only from third parties that tell you something that is not true. How would you know that you are being misled?
Personally I feel that non voters effectively voted for Trump, and they should own that as much as die hard MAGA types.
Don't disagree with you in principle but 2024 saw a very, very, very large turnout for US standards - the biggest one... Kamala's 75m+ votes basically are good enough (by very wide margin) to win any previous election (slimmer margin in 2020 than others but you get my point...)
2020 had about 4 million more votes cast.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnou...
Lots of people don't vote in mid terms, that's what Trump is aiming for.
It worked because a lot of people bought that story (and many continue to buy it evidenced by DJT's approval ratings among the GOP voters). The whole campaign basically had no platform other than your cookie-cutter "migrant crime", "economy bad" ...
* focus on abortion, which is an important issue ... mostly to evangelicals
* focus on threats to democracy, which sounded shrill and got blown off
* no real message on the economy, which was widely perceived as floundering under Biden, and was very important to a lot of swing voters
Then of course there's the whole "hey, let's not tell the senile old man that he basically promised to be a one-hit-wonder, and wait until the last moment to switch to his running mate instead".
In a way, it's impressive that the dems didn't lose by larger margins. Trump wasn't that popular, the dems were just that incompetent. I hope they pull their head out of their ass for 2028. But I'm not counting on it.
There's no formal mechanism of accountability for members of Congress. Representatives hold a few town halls a year where they might be subject to social shaming by their constituents, but there's no legal obligation to do so and even when they're publicly embarrassed they often dismiss public opposition as 'a few paid agitators' or the like.
This is doubly and triply true for complex policy issues which require a lot of explaining, making it virtually impossible to build grassroots support. So you just end up with a nonprofit industrial complex that needs to constantly raise funds for lobbying and publishes slates of endorsements at election time that relatively few people have the time or inclination to read.
Terrance McKenna once said that the worst president was the one in power, regardless of when it is. It is because for the most part, they just keep building on the existing frame work, standing on the shoulders of those before them.
Now one could argue that Trump is doing the opposite this term, but depending on were you stand, this might not have been a great out come.
A solution is Ranked Choice Voting where you can say, "Green, and if they don't win, D (or whatever)."
Fwiw, I vote my conscience, not to win. Not the best for my political positions maybe, but I hope to send a signal to others that maybe something other than R/D is one day possible. But, yeah, RCV would help with that conundrum.
Trump recently posted a diatribe about ranked choice voting in Alaska (calling it "disastrous, and very fraudulent").
Do you know why the modern GOP hates ranked choice voting? Because they rely upon getting clown votes wasted on the Tulsi Gabbard, Jill Stein's and Kanye West's of the world as a way to get elected. They just need to entice just enough fool-vote drawers, knowing the cult will not sway an iota.