33%

Ok - I have this theory that is looking for some research, but how does one research something like this? Since the 2000 (s)election, possibly even before that, my political advisor and I have been talking about a breakdown of the American electorate that amounts to approximately 60% of folks who are eligible to vote actually voting. A 50+% majority of this group of voters is therefore only 30+% of those eligible to vote. This brought me to a simple, perhaps unverifiable, intuitive idea: what if this 50/50 split, this “polarized” electorate we hear about after every presidential (s)election, before and after every congressional vote, is a myth? Why would the Republican party put such herculean effort into suppressing the vote (chasing statistically non-existent “voter fraud”) if they actually had the numbers to win? So I came up with a shorthand to use in our conversations: Republicans/Conservatives are only 33% of the electorate - there are no more votes beyond that cap. I believe this is why Bush & his cabal had to steal two elections and why the mobilization of greater numbers of eligible voters has made it impossible for the RNC to keep up. I have often wondered why the Democratic party and it’s supporters do not simply make these numbers (provided my intuitive sense is correct here) known publicly. Perhaps they are concerned that this would seem overly partisan? That going on record with something like this might be suppressive in itself, akin to telling Republicans/Conservatives that they can’t win so they should just stay home. Maybe it’s just too hard to get a real fix on these numbers in a country where the number of people who don’t vote is consistently higher than the “majority” that “wins” the (s)election. With that in mind, maybe the status quo (the 50/50 horserace model) is more appealing to the Democrats than the risky prospect of informing the electorate that a third party win is statistically possible...

I think that questioning authority requires a recognition that those in authority have the means to manipulate what we accept as “objective” facts, including control over delivery of these “objective” facts (via media, education, socialization, etc.). It is up to us to look to one another, alternative sources of information, and our intuitive understanding to see through the veneer of this “objectivity.” This is not to say that we should make a policy of disregarding “reality,” “truth,” or the “facts” but that a greater understanding comes when we keep in mind that we are all subjective beings, each with our own perceptions and interpretations of the “reality” around us.