It's the same where I am. If you asked almost anyone I grew up with about voting, the only reason they wouldn't laugh at you is because they've been taught to be polite. There isn't anyone to vote for who would represent them, and they know it.

The stats are roughly the same throughout the west: ⅓ red, ⅓ blue, ⅓ nobody. This makes it look like roughly 50:50 support for one party over the other. That apathetic third is mostly people who are ignored by every other official metric.

What's really happening is ⅓ are bigoted reactionaries, ½ of the second ⅓ think the 'progressive' side will make things better (or not), and the rest is ⅓ who don't vote and ⅙ who only vote as harm reduction without much hope or faith of getting it.

Which means ½ the population is unconvinced by liberal electoralism. And the reactionary ⅓ are often people with no other way of expressing their alienation or frustration other than voting for the colour that promised to oppress the people they've been told are the problem.

As soon as any revolutionary party gains traction and wins over the apathetic third and the harm reduction sixth, it's game over. A not insignificant chunk of the reactionary third will jump ship as they see it as a route to actually fixing the things they're concerned about.

The tiny minority that has faith in liberal electoralism (😂—sorry, I can't help but laugh) will take their historic place of irrelevancy. They only think they're relevant now because they bootlick for and support a system in which the people they vote for already hold all the power.

Let's hope that you're right and these stories increase the ranks of the apathetic. It'll mean less work for the socialists, later.

Exactly this. Unfortunately, nearly every American I've met - even the left-leaning - is convinced that, in spite of its flaws, the US is still the safest/best place to be. They're so disillusioned with the American government and society, but still fervently believe every other system and place is worse (except the Nordic model). And they'll believe me if I tell them why whatever they do support isn't as good as they think, but they take serious convincing to even entertain the idea that China isn't as bad as they think. Us Americans have been hardwired to be distrustful of any good thing, to a fault, and it's really sad when you think about it. It's just bizarre we can be so anti-government as a country and still blindly do exactly what the government wants.

I've considered trying to move to Massachusetts someday. Maybe not Boston, because living in cities always seems like a hassle to my small town ass, but somewhere near it.