It's not necessarily apathy because people are inherently apathetic and more interested in whatever new pop icon is running around. Frustration, desperation, and despair feed apathy. Feeling that no matter what you've tried to do to change the system and still see it filled with the same crap every year breeds apathy. Trying to stay afloat long enough for the next paycheck to come while praying there will be no unexpected expense and being too exhausted day in day out that when you come home from work all the energy you have is being able to fall asleep in front of the tv definitely breeds apathy.
Oh sure, you can get an absentee ballot. It's very easy. I mean, that kind of information is just laying around at the local supermarket. Then when you do find the information, it's just a matter of sending them the right identification papers proving you live in whatever state it is you live in. During business hours of course. With any luck, you have a job that gives you time off during business hours. Once everything's on the level, you get to fill it out and mail it to hopefully the right office and hope it actually gets there. And make sure you do this a month in advance so it gets counted.
And when they tell you the morning of election day that it turns out that your absentee ballot doesn't count because your roommates got you kicked out of the address you had in your home state and now you can't vote there. But then they tell you you can't vote in the state you've been temporarily living in because you're not a resident and records show you were only there to temporarily work. You spend all day working out how to vote, while your boss is pissed that you had to take the day off for "something so trivial." You finally get to vote fifteen minutes before the polls close and discover that the one person you could vote for without feeling like a total sleazebag isn't on the ballot, besides being a major player in the elections.
Then you go home and get a call from your mother who says "You can vote for whoever you want this time. Your state is red so it doesn't really matter who you vote for."
That's why I voted for Batman in the last election. There was no one on the fucking ballot that I could vote for without feeling like a cheat. I will not vote for someone that's the proverbial "lesser of two evils" or vote for one that's better than the other but still not someone I'd want in office. Which is why it's disheartening every time a national election rolls around.
Yes, I am complaining. All my fucking life I've been referred to as that younger generation. The apathetic, worthless, selfish bunch of kids who are more interested in the latest movie rather than changing the world. No matter what people of my generation did, no matter how hard they tried to change things, or even if they did change things, they were unworthy of the world. Looked down on and never taken seriously.
So then people get angry and when their turn comes, they say "fuck the old people, and while we're at it, fuck the young people too. What do they know?" And then the whole fucking thing starts over again.
So I did vote in the last election, as I vote in all the fucking elections, down to neighborhood watch. I cared about the local politics, but I had, and still have, a sense of pointlessness whenever I think about national elections. Every time I hear my vote doesn't fucking count because I live in a red state I lose a little bit of caring. Every time someone tells me that because I'm not 30 yet, I'm just a punk kid who doesn't know how the world REALLY works, I just want to give up.
It's not that people don't care about what affects them, it's that they don't know or there's nothing for them either way. Like boorite said, how can you choose between two options you don't believe in? And if you choose a third that you do, it's either a vote that you know will go nowhere or you'll get yelled at by one party for "giving" your vote to the opposing side.
I tell you, I really enjoy being told that I elected Bush because I decided to vote for who I thought was the best candidate.
Now I'm all disjointed in my response. I'll stop now because I'm sure someone will say something akin to a sarcastic "boo hoo we feel so sad for you but blah blah blah you're wrong because of blah blah blah." Or even better, "I have to work my ass off every day and I still manage to fight the system therefore I'm better than you." I get that one a lot. Those are great. Really makes me want to vote for the other side out of spite.
Or not at all. Why bother? Caring didn't work.
