Protesters. It feels like they’re everywhere these days. Women marched. Immigrants stopped working. Even scientists are rallying in Washington. With so much demonstration, it at times seems hard to believe that Trump and Republicans won the day a few short months ago.
Trump himself even said it, “Why didn’t these people vote?” There has been a lot of talk about voter turnout and how it typically hurts Democrats, but surely the people who stay at home aren’t the same who fail to vote, right? When you really stop to think about the people you’re considering, maybe you won’t be surprised to learn that a significant majority of protesters who are eligible to vote never exercise that right.
Surveys
This story starts with research done in Portland. Apparently, 61.6 percent of protesters in the area failed to vote at all last year. This trend grows more extreme when geared toward violent and/or criminal protesters. In general, the more passionate and extreme the protester, the less likely they are to vote at all.
This is backed by additional research in the U.K. and Chile that show at the best of times, only half of protesters ever vote (in countries where voting is not mandatory). Now, this should not be confused with surveys. They tend to show that 80 to 90 percent of protesters claim to vote, but those same surveys show that 75 to 85 percent of all Americans vote. Since total turnout in the last election was barely over 50 percent, you can see how unreliable these surveys are.
In general, survey respondents tend to claim they voted when they actually didn’t, and if you treat these surveys with the same drop off rate, then you see that at most only 60 percent of protesters ever vote, that 60 percent is an extremely optimistic number, especially when compared to research like that done in Oregon.
Voting Power
The insanity of this frame of mind is apparent when you look at the numbers. Somewhere between 3 and 5 million protesters have participated in marches in the U.S. so far this year. Many proponents have seen it as a revival of American protest, yet those numbers represent at least 2 million Americans who actively (often destructively) speak out against the current administration and didn’t bother to cast a ballot.
If those protesters were spread out evenly across the country, their participation could have swung five different states. While they are geographically represented the same as most progressive groupings (primarily in California, New York and D.C.), there is no question that Republicans gained substantially from their voting abstinence. This truth only becomes more evident when you consider House districts and state-level elections that switched red.
Why?
Now we’re faced with the real question: if they’re so passionate, why don’t they vote? The picture becomes clear when you consider protesting demographics. More than 80 percent of protesters are between the ages of 18 and 29, with a heavy majority in the college age.
In fact, most protesters are active students, and that is the primary issue. This is a select group of Americans that enjoy unprecedented privilege. Working your way through college is a thing of the past; modern students simply take loans and push responsibility to later stages in their lives.
This culture is the breeding ground for vociferous youth who have no real sense of accountability. While they treat protests as the next Burning Man and a way to meet like-minded people and make fun memories, they have no real stake in the elections. Compared to blue-collar America that was facing extinction under the threat of another Obama-esque term, it’s not surprising that voter turnout skewed the way it did.
In the end, protesting is just another youth-led trend. Celebrities raise awareness and make participation seem like the hip, sexy thing to do. This narrow demographic follows the direction of the uneducated actors and musicians they worship, and thus protesting participation rises.
When it comes to attending polls, the sex appeal is gone, and this group can’t be bothered. This is the ultimate undoing of the progressive ideology. Shouting demands is the general practice rather than pragmatic efforts.
Thankfully, it keeps them from acquiring meaningful power, and eventually this generation will grow up and get jobs. At that point, you can trust their political motivations and voting habits to change, and the Republican Party will enjoy another generation of support.
~ Conservative Zone
