Bush is making a better nation

I haven’t been truly excited to vote in this country’s Presidential elections since… Well, before I was born. I imagine I would have been very excited to vote for Kennedy. Unfortunately, that was before my time. Since then my strategy has been a simple one: Vote against. There is always someone that we should vote against, and one can seldom go wrong taking this strategy. Unfortunately, from here it’s a slippery slope toward apathy — according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate (CSAE) over the last 30 years voter turnout has declined dramatically producing a series of historic lows.

By the 1950s, however, voter turnout was back to normal, and all signs in the United States pointed to ever higher rates… Yet, turnout did not increase after the 1950s. In fact, the period from 1960 to 2000 marks the longest ebb in turnout in US history. Turnout was nearly 65 percent of the adult population in the 1960 presidential election and stood at only 51 percent in 2000. In 2002, turnout was 39 percent in the November election and a mere 18 percent in the congressional primaries. — History News Network

These trends seem to precede our national awareness of socially responsible behavior: In other words, voter participation in our national government seems to be spurred on by greater need. As John Churton Collins wrote, “In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.” The global community certainly has come to know us. But now adversity threatens us from all sides and, most significantly, we as a people seem to be realizing the cause is internal. It’s time for us to wake up and start participating in the global community again.

So, thank you, Mr. Bush. You have brought us to such a new low, you have threatened our country with such adversity, you have made a mockery of what was once a Nation that led the global community. If not for your actions, our national apathy might have continued to grow, unabated, as we spent more time in front of our televisions with our minds turned off. Thank you, Mr. Bush, for making things so bad that we finally woke up and started to care again.