[light_hue_1]

85% of Americans pay taxes to a federal government that they cannot vote for.

My vote is totally irrelevant. I've moved 3 states in my life. Never once has it mattered because of how we vote. My state will be blue. My congressional district will be blue. I might as well do nothing.

Thankfully I'm a dual citizen with Canada so my vote has mattered there at least part of the time.

So this isn't anything special.

I'd say the EU is in a far more democratic spot by this metric than the US.

[rmah]

Your statement doesn't make sense to me, perhaps you could clarify it? Did you mean that 85% of the population didn't vote for the current leader of the executive branch? If so then perhaps "that 85% [...] did not vote for" might be more appropriate. Or were your referring to the electoral college used to elect the POTUS?

For the first, 100% of citizens cannot vote for the federal government representatives (children, most felons, etc do not have the franchise), and about 1/2 of citizens who are eligible to vote do not. The vast majority of adult citizens can vote.

For the electoral college, that only applies to the POTUS. I agree that the electoral college is deeply flawed. But both senators and congressmen are elected directly. They are the ones who make the laws. The executive branch just enforces and executes those laws. The responsibility for the many vague laws that hand over power to the executive is on congress.

IMO, to say "85% of Americans pay taxes to a federal government that they cannot vote for" is misleading at best.

[light_hue_1]

It's not misleading. I have no idea why people are voting this down. It's just a simple fact.

We have 3 parts of the federal government we can vote for: executive, senate, and house. Yet, the vast majority of people reading this have never cast a vote that mattered in any of those. I certainly have not.

Most states are not competitive when it comes to electoral votes. It doesn't matter if 100% of MA or CA comes out. Whoever is blue-colored will win those EVs. Beyond that, any other vote is worthless and won't change the outcome.

Most states are not competitive when it comes to the senate. Who wins in most races is predetermined by their color affiliation.

Most house races are the same. Many house races don't even have any meaningful opposition because everyone knows who will win.

It's even worse at the local level. Depending on the type of position 60-90% of races are uncontested.

Of course people don't turn out. For 85+% of people it doesn't matter.

> about 1/2 of citizens who are eligible to vote do not

I'm part that majority. No matter how many of me show up even if it was an unlimited number of people, there is literally nothing my vote can do to change the outcome. So yeah. Why waste the time pretending we're in a democracy?

We're in a rule by a tiny minority.