Faux-Rage Du Jour: Bernie said, "Poor people don't vote."

Bernie said it one of the Sunday talk shows. The Hellery flying monkeys will be screeching about this for the next week or so, calling it "outrageous" and "disgraceful". As usual and unfortunately for them, it is also a true statement.

...the United States is unique among developed countries in turnout inequality, and it has the second lowest voter turnout of all OECD countries. The chart below shows the turnout differences between the richest quintile and the poorest quintile in the United States. The average gap across the countries studied is 8.4 percentage points, while the gap in the United States is nearly three times that—23.6 percentage points.
Source: Politico

Note in this graph from the Politico story, in USA (far right data point), voter turnout of the Poor is far below that of the Rich. Also note how low US turnout is compared to other industrialized nations -- a clear success story for voter suppression tactics.

MEANWHILE IN ACTUAL IMPORTANT NEWS, Bernie is now within 2 points of Hellery in CA (Fox poll). Earlier this month he was 12 points behind.
HELLERY'S POLLS ARE LITERALLY MELTING.

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Lady Libertine's picture

links to this article which is from August 2015
http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/05/news/economy/poor-people-voting-rights/

And a Pew Research Center report this year stated "financial security is strongly correlated with nearly every measure of political engagement."
While the report makes clear that a lack of financial security is not necessarily the primary cause for disengagement, it does suggest it has an effect. Essentially, when you're concerned about putting food on the table, it's hard to think about politics.

My own opinion here is that The Poor and The Near Poors are still convinced that they are powerless and have no hope to access power. They believe that Crumbs is the best/most they can hope for. We have to work on that.

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Citizen Of Earth's picture

Yep. IMO Obama helped cement that view. The Banks got showered with $Billions for crashing the global economy. The working class and poor got a worthless Hope and Change bumper sticker.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

detroitmechworks's picture

And especially those who aren't involved in politics in any capacity.

They often liken elections to picking a new person to ruin your life. Doesn't matter who you pick, they're going to screw you over anyway, and it's only a matter of keeping your head down and hiding what you have.

Not MY opinion, but an opinion I heard over and over again when talking to poor people over the past five years.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

have time to vote -- juggling job(s), kids, and the like takes up a lot of time. And look how many of the Democratic debates were on cable only -- if you can't afford cable or home Internet access you're not going to be as well-informed on the issues and thus might feel like you shouldn't be voting. Which is just fine with TPTB who want as few voters as possible for all they moan about low turnouts; when people vote, people win and that scares TPTB to death, as witnessed by attempts to keep "those people" from voting by reducing voting hours (as we saw in NY), voter ID laws, etc.

I would love to see a massive voting reform campaign in this country:

  • remove onerous barriers to voting, such as voter ID
  • longer voting period; perhaps over a 3-day weekend instead of on a single Tuesday
  • voting by mail such as done in OR and WA (with drop-off points for those who wait till the last minute)
  • free air time for all candidates on radio/TV as part of FCC license requirements
  • all debates must be offered on over-the-air channels with a radio simulcast (stations could count debate coverage as part of the free air time requirement); could be sponsored by a cable network but cannot be solely available on that outlet

That's just a few ideas I have...

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Citizen Of Earth's picture

all of that would have been made law decades ago. Sigh.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

thanatokephaloides's picture

voting by mail such as done in OR and WA (with drop-off points for those who wait till the last minute)

Don't forget that Colorado also has all of this; and, IIRC, had it first. It's just the right thing to do.

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

gulfgal98's picture

since the late 1990's.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

PriceRip's picture

          In just a few more weeks and counting, I'll be able to participate. I wish the rest of the country would get with the program. Making voting easy is just the first step in accomplishing the really hard part: Prying power away from the party professionals and giving it to "the great unwashed".
          A funny thing happened on the way to the forum (in Nebraska): The 2016 caucus was run by Sanders supporters and the emphasis was on participation. The 2008 caucus was run by Hillary supporters and the emphasis was on nominating Hillary. So . . . what can I say‽ Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat history‽

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Give them someone to vote for....I think it's that simple. A candidate who will work for wage earners and those who want to be wage earners. Even Massachusetts, blue state that it is, is in the bottom 10 in wealth and income equality yet lavishes tax dollars on the Pharma and Tech companies. It's no coincidence that Deval Patrick went from governor to Bain Capital because that's who he served.

My basic answer: Neither party offers workers anyone worth voting for.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

PriceRip's picture

          Giving us someone to vote for may be harder that it sounds. Growing up poor, the outside world was rather bleak, for me staying in school my entire life made it possible to rethink my weltanschauung.

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PriceRip's picture

          From my experience I am surprised that as many as 48% of the poor vote. I am of the poor side of the Price (also spelled Pryce) family of Idaho, and Utah. Very few of us in the "outlaw branch" of the family vote or consider politics as anything other than a joke.
          Anecdotal evidence being what it is, my observation is not worth much, but poverty can engender a fatalistic attitude that is most debilitating. Hope was often rare in our small clan.

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gulfgal98's picture

very well. Many poor people have only seen politicians and the system fail them. I have heard it from lower income people who do not vote. They believe that all politicians are the same and that they (politicians) do not care about them. When was the last time we have seen a President of the United States address the issue of poverty?

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

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