I can buy that, given the many Americans today who feel disillusioned by the two-party system. And as a mother, the woman probably stopped following politics as she was busy caring for her children. I watched the video and heard one of her children saying she lived thru the woman's suffrage and civil rights movements. During the civil rights movement (the '50s and '60s), I wonder if she felt so much despair that she felt neither (D) nor (R) politicians could fix the problems of segregation?
After LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act came the Vietnam War. Of course, the war began under a Democratic administration, and Richard Nixon (a Republican) escalated the war. (You've got to see how Nixon's people allegedly hijacked the Paris Peace Talks the month before the 1968 election.) Nixon goes down because of Watergate, and many Americans trust government less as a result. More dissatisfaction after Gerald Ford pre-emptively pardons Nixon. Carter (D) wins in 1976. Although a decent human being, the economy isn't that great in the late 70s under Carter.
The 1980s were the Reagan years, a turning tide for America. She might have not been a Reagan fan but not too impressed by Carter, Mondale, or Dukakis.
The 1990s began with a war and recession under the first Bush and then the prosperity under Clinton. I could understand why Margaret Harris (and many other Americans) would've stayed home in 1996, in the midst of an Era of Good Feelings. And who would've known that Republicans would hijack the 2000 election?
The 2000s went from the horrendous (and even illegitimate) presidency of the second Bush to the election of the first black president, Obama. 2008 must finally have given her hope, I suppose. If there was a bigger political skeptic out there than this 106-year-old woman, who? I look at history and can see that Margaret Harris would have been one of those people who looked at the world and couldn't understand how voting (with the major party choices at the time) could solve those problems.
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