80% of the People did not Elect these republicans

[RobertEarl]

Roughly translated, that means about 7 million people in these here United States are responsible for the congress being held hostage by the republicans.

It is up to us to keep reminding those 20% that voted for republicans that what happens in congress over the next two years is because of them.

[Ykcutnek]

1. This is one of the most honest postmortems I've seen.

K&R.

[Spazito]

2. Add to that the 63.4% non-voters who are also responsible for what happens in...

Congress over the next two years.

[fleur-de-lisa]

4. Wish I could rec this response!

Agree 100% ! ! !

[Chathamization]

9. Yep. The 2/3 of Americans who said they don't care who gets into power need to realize that there

are consequences for that kind of attitude. Though, if we look at primaries, it's probably closer to 80-90% non-voters.

[Spazito]

12. It's as if there is a lack of understanding on where the power lies...

more vote during a Presidential election yet the power of the President is severely limited constitutionally whereas the true power of governance, power that affects the public in every way, lies with the House and the Senate yet far fewer vote when the choice of President isn't on the table.

[Chathamization]

14. Yep, and from my experience people pay even less attention to local state-wide politics when that

often plays an even bigger role (that's how we've been getting many of our progressive victories). I've said this before, but it bears repeating - Dana Milbank and Matt Yglesias both live here, and both of them treat local politics as a joke. Milbank writes about how he doesn't bother to vote in the primaries, and how we shouldn't have representation in congress because local politicians decided that all taxi cabs should be painted red (seriously...). Yglesias, supposedly liberal, supported a Norquist-pledge signatory over a good progressive here, and has asked people who to vote for on twitter the night before elections. Both these people are well known individuals who are paid to pay attention to politics, but they are really only interested in celebrities that get in the headlines. Policy that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of their neighbors is too boring to pay attention to.

That's a horrible mindset that I think is too common. Political discourse stops being about trying to figure out ways to get good things implemented, and becomes a sports match. The president is exciting, so people talk about that and show up. The House and the Senate, less so. The people that decide if we have marriage equality, if marijuana prohibition continues, if we get free higher education, if we get single-payer, whether the homeless get shelter during frigid winter conditions, if the state will be gerrymandered, if schools will be (de facto) segregated? Too boring, not exciting enough! No reason to spend even 10 minutes Googling who's running.

[ksoze]

3. Actually its more like 99.99999%+ of people

If people means those who did not vote, which is 7+ billion worldwide. Those who did not vote here can join the rest of the world who watch - the difference is they could have had an effect and chose not to.

[cleanhippie]

5. No, we need to get the 60% of people that didn't fucking vote to get off their collective asses

and vote.

[jeff47]

7. Make sure you keep yelling at them instead of listening to them.

Yelling and name-calling is bound to work this time.

[cleanhippie]

15. Do you see me yelling and calling names? No, you dont.

Direct that energy toward the actual problem.

[jeff47]

16. I am.

"Get of their asses" is not generally used in a friendly context.

The problem is the party has offered virtually nothing to the young. So the young stay home - if you're young GenX or Millennial, you've gotten about the same results with either party in charge. Sure, Democrats tell a nice story. But they cower in fear of implementing that nice story. Even when they hold both houses of Congress and the presidency.

Why? Because the people running the party are older boomers, the other major liberal voting bloc. And they've spent a lot more time yelling at the young than listening to the young. Such as telling them to "get off their asses" instead of asking "Why aren't you voting?" and finding out what the actual problem is.

[RobertEarl]

17. I agree with most of that jeff

But the part about the 'other major liberal block' as running the party, is not, in my experience, true. Big money and conservatives run the party. Most of the grassroots work and GOTV, and all that is done by Liberals. But the decisions and financing are made by establishment conservatives. DWS and Israel are proof of that; may they have a next career that keeps them out, eh?

[spanone]

6. around the world, people die for the right to vote....not so much here.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Don't assume that the non-voters would have voted against the GOP

We don't know how the non-voters would have split.

[RobertEarl]

10. Yes I do

Every time there is an above 60% turnout, more democrats get elected.

Don't even pretend to feed me any other bullshit, please.

The thing is, we now have a minority elected congress. Full of anti-American republicans. That's the point.

[leftstreet]

11. Democrats influence turnout by campaigning from the left

See 2006 and 2008 for successful Democratic campaigns that focused on ending the war on Iraq, Jobs Programs, 'universal' healthcare and help for working class people

What did Democrats campaign on during these midterms?

[RobertEarl]

13. 2014 platform?

Hell if I know what it was. And I pay close attention.

Our problem is that the grassroots of the party has been pissed on. Big money is having their way with the party elites, and by gosh, big money just won this election.

The point is what can we do now? We don't get to vote for a year and a half, so what can we do? We can make life miserable for the minority elected republicans. Anything else we can do?