Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

There was an article making the rounds of Twitter a couple days ago that was a profile of young people who don't vote, and while it was framed as "these irresponsible young'uns who don't care," the people themselves were insightful. Many of the young people wondered why it was good to cast a ballot when (a) your own viewpoint isn't represented among the candidates, and (b) the system has been so thoroughly rigged against you that even if you did vote, one of the candidates that's predetermined to win will win.

Then, if you're young and a woman or a minority, you have to deal with structural voter suppression, states that tell you the wrong place or time to vote, that holds your registration for flimsy excuses, that closer down any polling place or time that looks like it might be convenient to you, that set "poll Watchers" to try and intimidate you out of voting, and so on.

They're not absent because of a lack of civic fervor, but because there's not always something there they care about enough to try and overcome all the barriers put in place to stop them from registering and successfully casting ballots, as well as the heavily gerrymandered districts designed to prevent them from having any actual influence.

It's way easier to vote as a middle-aged white dude than as anybody else.