By Jim Heffernan
There’s a phrase in poker when you’re called and have the winning hand, “Read ‘em and Weep.”
Here’s a chart that I think should make you “Read ‘em and Weep.” It’s a graph of the last 5 decades of presidential elections and only once did an actual human candidate end up on the left representing the biggest chunk of the electorate. It was Biden and he barely beat out the block of “did not vote” block.
68% of voters did not vote for Trump in 2024. 65.6% of voters did not vote for Biden in 2020. I think we’re lying to ourselves when we say we have a democracy.
I’m almost as old as Trump and I am deeply saddened that our political system has failed dismally to provide us with what we need and what we deserve. It did not swing in a single election. It’s been many.
When I describe life for me in my mid 20’s it sounds like an implausible dream to today’s ears.
The size of the “did not vote” block makes the buying and selling of power affordable for the upper reaches of our society. They remain the winners and we are the losers.
I think I know a solution. It’s not an instant solution, but I think it might work. It will take all of us. It’s not a big thing, but if we each do a small thing we can accomplish a big thing. If the “did not vote” block was a tiny sliver of future graphs, we might make big changes — We might forge a better life for everyone.
I read an insane number of books. More than anything, I am seeking an answer that may lead us out of this dismal pit we call modern politics.
My latest author, Eric Liu, has a lot of answers for me. I’ll close this with an excerpt from page 204 of his excellent book, “Become America”
“Motive matters. And it is all pretty simple. If your motive is to exclude, to hoard, to try to block the future from happening, then you should lose. American history is a record of groups of people fighting that exclusion, challenging that hoarding, opening the gates to the future. American history is a record of small groups of people who keep remaking this country over and over, and who reveal to us all that the perpetual remaking is the greatest statement of fidelity to our creed and our national purpose, which is not to be like Russia, white and stagnant and oligarchic, or like China, monoethnic and authoritarian and centralized, but to be more like America, hybrid and dynamic and democratic and free to be remade.
You know how we do that? We show up. We join clubs. We start clubs. We build citizen muscle. We learn how to read and write power, starting in our local communities. We learn how to practice civic character in gatherings like this. We register. We register others. We vote. Because there is no such thing as not voting. . Not voting is voting to hand your power to someone who despises you and will use it against you. We ask disarming questions. We listen. We make friends. We make trouble, what John Lewis calls good trouble. We make this country live up to its promises by starting with ourselves. We realize this country by making it more possible for more people more of the time to participate in and contribute to the simple miracle of self-government.
That’s my motive. What’s yours? Do you live to exclude or include, to hoard or to circulate, to leech or to feed? Be honest. Do you believe it’s every man for himself-or do you believe we’re all better off when we’re all better off? Careful: both beliefs are self-fulfilling. You behave like you believe. Then society becomes how you behave. It’s only by looking with clear eyes at what really drives our choices-not what we say, what we will tell a pollster or a neighbor-that we open ourselves to the possibility of truth, reconciliation, and civic renewal.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Join Jim for Civic Saturdays – where you’ll listen to one of Eric Liu’s “sermons” – we’ll post the transcript from last week and a preview for this Saturday. Here’s the link for the Zoom on Saturday 2/15 –
Invite link for Saturday 10AM
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88905106346?pwd=TEaw5qfSN2X5UoxBHgZSF7UsqwMugD.1
As always, discussion welcome at codger817@gmail.com
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