Next question today is, hey, David, it's pretty clear at this point that horrible presidents
don't really increase voter turnout that much from people who are desperate to get them
out of office.
What actually does or would increase voter turnout?
Yeah, so here's the thing.
I actually, I believe that the activism that has been inspired by Donald Trump is real
and, uh, uh, is or at least was substantive.
The problem is that people, um, adjust very quickly to the new status quo.
And it's been a couple of years now that Donald Trump has been around and things that would
have been scandals in his first month, no longer even register as scandals.
There has been a creeping normalization.
So I actually do believe that an acutely cartoonishly horrible president does inspire people to
vote.
The problem is the election isn't held three months after the inauguration, it's four years
later and that's a long time for things to become re normalized and I think that that's
the problem.
But your point is well taken, which is I don't believe that a lot of the activism and enthusiasm
and energy that we saw in the marches and the protests after Donald Trump's election
and inauguration, I think a lot of it is faded and a lot of those people are not going to
vote in November of 2020 so what does increase voter turnout?
We have a context here in the United States of non mandatory voting.
Along with that.
We see very low voter turnout, often not even 50% I think sometimes in midterms we have
40 to 45 maybe in some presidential elections it gets to 55 I'm going from memory.
I don't exactly remember, but it is a very low turnout compared to many other western
countries.
Usually the discussion about increasing voter turnout is at the micro level.
I'll give you some examples.
Automatic voter registration.
Okay.
Automatic voter registration does seem to have an effect on increasing voter turnout.
That's a good thing.
We should enable same day registration, meaning even if you didn't have the forethought to
register to vote six months before the election, if you decide on election day, hey, you know
what, it's election day.
I'm going to vote.
You should be able to register on that day.
That does increase voter turnout.
Voting by mail, absentee voting without requiring a reason helps voter turnout, allowing people
not to have to justify, you know, I have limited mobility or I'm going to be out of the country.
I want to vote by mail with an absentee ballot ballot allowing absentee ballot with no required
justification increases voter turnout.
Now one that historically does not seem to increase voter turnout is early voting.
Um, we talk a lot about restrictions on early voting, strategically meant to help Republicans
as part of the voter suppression package that we've seen from the Republican Party.
And we need to fight that any effort to disproportionately disenfranchise democratic poor, non white
voters, we need to fight against it.
But a couple of studies that we have now suggest that early voting does not seem to, in total
increased voter turnout making election day.
A national holiday is an idea that's thrown out there.
I'm up for any of these that are demonstrated to increase voter turnout, but I think we're
thinking too small.
Okay.
We need to be increasing voter turnout by educating people who are more connected to
the importance of participating in elections.
That's it.
Okay.
So it's not, I mean, okay, listen, the absentee voting with not without a required a justification.
Let's do it.
Okay?
But we need to be starting with 12 year olds in middle school.
And I talk about we need to be teaching critical thinking at an early age.
We need to be thinking, uh, teaching civics at an early age.
We need to be teaching up basics of philosophy and thinking about how to think at an early
age.
This will generate people who are more involved and better thinkers and it is going to help
the left by the way, because the more people that are thinking in the more educated people
are in these areas, the more likely they are to vote for left wing candidates.
But it's much more difficult to convince a 22 year old who's never voted.
It matters.
You should vote.
Go and register then just raising kids starting in middle school, who integrate the importance
of our participating in our political system.
This includes voting, but this includes being activists.
This includes writing letters when necessary.
This includes protesting and, uh, massing and urban centers when necessary.
So I think that the best way to increase voter turnout, we can play around the edges with
automatic registration, same day registration.
And all of this stuff.
The real way to increase voter turnout is to from an early age in grain, in every student,
the importance of voting and make it the default.
Not some people choose to vote in, some don't.
You should vote.
The default should be you register and you vote.
Barring some really good reason not to go out and vote, that's going to increase voter
turnout much, much more than any of these little changes we might make around the edges.
Let me know what you think.
Um, big picture.
Let me know what you think at the micro level in terms of the specific changes that can
be made, what will increase voter turnout and what will not.
I want to hear from you a send me a tweet.
I'm on Twitter at d pacman.
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