In a ‘direct democracy’ system where the general population vote directly to change and implement policies, then discussing about the behavior of these individual voters would be sensible.
But in a ‘representative democracy’, like the United States, the people don’t vote directly for policies. They vote for representatives in Congress to ‘represent’ their interests. It is these representatives that actually vote to change and implement policies. The chance of these represenatives casting the deciding vote is 1⁄535 (1/100 in Senate, 1⁄435 in the HoR), and thus is much higher than the chance of an individual casting the deciding vote (1/1,000,000). If politics is charity, then it would be more productive to donate to “assist” the represenatives GOTV (by voting how you want them to vote) than it is to get the average powerless individual to GOTV.
In addition, focusing on elected officals tend to ignore the judicary system and the bureacracy, unelected officals who, nevertheless, make policies just as much as the elected officals do. For example, the FDA rejects and accepts drugs based on criteria it sets, the Fed sets monetary policy and implictly decides the unemployment and inflation rates, the EPA passes environmental regulations that corporations must follow, and the Supreme Court justices rule on important court cases that would impact the lives of millions. “Assisting” those represenatives GOTV would be incredibly lucrative.
In a ‘direct democracy’ system where the general population vote directly to change and implement policies, then discussing about the behavior of these individual voters would be sensible.
But in a ‘representative democracy’, like the United States, the people don’t vote directly for policies. They vote for representatives in Congress to ‘represent’ their interests. It is these representatives that actually vote to change and implement policies. The chance of these represenatives casting the deciding vote is 1⁄535 (1/100 in Senate, 1⁄435 in the HoR), and thus is much higher than the chance of an individual casting the deciding vote (1/1,000,000). If politics is charity, then it would be more productive to donate to “assist” the represenatives GOTV (by voting how you want them to vote) than it is to get the average powerless individual to GOTV.
In addition, focusing on elected officals tend to ignore the judicary system and the bureacracy, unelected officals who, nevertheless, make policies just as much as the elected officals do. For example, the FDA rejects and accepts drugs based on criteria it sets, the Fed sets monetary policy and implictly decides the unemployment and inflation rates, the EPA passes environmental regulations that corporations must follow, and the Supreme Court justices rule on important court cases that would impact the lives of millions. “Assisting” those represenatives GOTV would be incredibly lucrative.