perfidy

No president has recieved a majority of the popular vote in the last three elections. Percentage of registered voters actually voting is low. Registered voters are an ever smaller fraction of eligible voters. There are two sides to this comparison that you make. On the one hand, you can say that you are shocked, shocked to find that more Americans are interested in the vapid American Idol competition than in who will head up the executive branch of our government. And in many senses this is disturbing. The peeple, the unwashed masses, have no conception of civic duty, of the intelligent exercise of the right of franchise, or the like. They are more concerned with which bubble-head, asshatted, no talent publicity seeker wins a contest. Holy jeebus. I do wish more of my fellow citizens took their responsibilities more seriously. On the other hand, it is simply miraculous and largely unprecedented in history that so large a population is so insulated from the often pernicious consequences of politics that they can safely ignore them. Throughout the world and throughout history, choosing sides in politics is a life and death decision. 

I often weep or gnash my teeth at the most recent outrage. Some of them are the same things that outrage Johno. Less frequently, they are the things that exercise Mike. I think these things are important. I think about them, discuss them, and write about them on this blog. I am a (very small) part of the national discourse on the crucial issues facing our nation. But I could tune out the whole thing, and lead my life without any great fear that the fortunes of my family would be direly affected. Affected, yes, but not in the same sense as choosing the wrong side, or staying neutral too long in France in 1790, Germany in 1848, Russia in 1920, or China in 1950, or Iraq just recently. 

Some people seem to think that American Exceptionalism means that we are better than anyone else at everything. This is not true. (Lots of things, not everything.) The reason that the United States is exceptional is not that our government is so capable, often it is the exact opposite. But our system allows all quarter+ billion of us to use (or not use) our abilities to the fullest. However we choose. The governent, by and large, stays out of the way. We panic whenever it encroaches on some aspect of our life. But we choose our jobs, where to live, how to live. We don't need passports to leave the state. We don't need a governent permit to set up a seditios weblog. We don't need a bureaucrat's blessing to try and build a working space ship in our garage as a hobby. (Which thousands of people do.) That is exceptional. Regardless of the fact that 58 million found time to vote for Kelly Clarkson, you can't compete with a nation whose populace builds spaceships for fun. Or invents whole new industries that change the way the entire world operates out of a garage, for fun. (Personal computers.) To paraphrase Bill Clinton, "It's the Liberty, stupid." 

And liberty means that people can vote for Kelly Clarkson, and not for president.