Bill Maher drilled the people who bother to show up to vote, and he took down the excuses that President Obama hasn’t kept his promises.
Video:
Maher targeted the myth that President Obama hasn’t kept his promises, “To me, the most annoying excuse for not voting well, Obama didn’t deliver on his promises. You sure about that? Maybe they just didn’t cover it on TMZ? And anyway, the choice was never between the perfect Obama in your head and the real one who came to Washington. It’s between the real one and the two guys who desperately wanted to beat him so that they could stamp America in their image.”
Maher explained what the country would have been like under a president McCain or Romney then called out those who think they are above voting.
Later, the Real Time host said, “Keep telling yourself that because politics is dirty, so very dirty, that you, precious, by not voting or informing yourself or participating in any way are clean. That’s it. You’ve kept yourself pure because you haven’t gotten yourself sullied by the gutter that is American politics. Well, you can keep telling yourself that, but the truth is that if your hands aren’t dirty, it’s not because you’re pure. It’s because you’re not helping.”
The excuse about Obama not keeping his promises is one of the favorites of the uninformed. What Obama didn’t keep his promises really means is that these people are upset that the president didn’t do everything that they wanted, so they are going to throw a tantrum and not vote.
The idealists who ignore political reality in order to take the holier than thou position of being above politics only hurt themselves and their country by sitting out elections. Our system of government is a representative democracy. In order for your voice to be heard, you have to vote. Those who don’t vote are muting themselves. They are making sure that their interests won’t be part of the national discussions.
These people are only punishing themselves. They are minimizing their own value. The country moves forward whether they vote or not, but by not voting they lose their say in the charting the course for the future. The issue of not voting is different from those people who try to vote but have their voice silenced voter suppression.
People who choose not to vote aren’t superior. They aren’t better than the rest of us. Those who don’t vote are the reason Republicans control the House and Senate. They are responsible for the gridlock that they complain about, and they feed the cycle of discouragement that is dragging down voter participation rates.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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