Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

The whole idea of democracy is predicated on a majority of people using their best judgment to decide a subjective issue, but the reality is, at the individual level, voting is far from an exercise in good judgment, logic & sound thinking; the simple fact is, most people don't have enough information or experience to vote on most things, even with the 1-paragraph blurb in a Voter's Pamphlet, which they probably don't even read all the way through. What's really going on in most voter's minds is that everyone thinks they're making a statement; which means, vote for everyone in their party, or vote against every incumbent, or vote all female or minority.

Making a statement is, by far, the most common way to vote, but the biggest way of making a statement is to not vote at all. Not only can later someone brag about not voting, but it's a lot more convenient and less anxiety-inducing to simply bypass the whole thing; that way the results can't be blamed on you. As cynical as the making a statement strategy sounds, it’s actually the most effective use of a vote. Most of the candidates are ineffectual or compromised to begin with, and whichever one wins makes little overall difference so, essentially, voters have no other effect in politics except as a statement of their own perversity.