JoAnn DeLeau

The Disengagement Problem

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The Disengagement Problem:

What drives people to be politically disengaged in Salt Lake City?

It is no secret that political participation has been declining for decades, but what few
people realize is just how extreme the the numbers truly are. To be able to find the 'why' behind
the record low voting and political involvement, we must first look at the history behind it.

Intro to Voter Turnout Decline

Historically, despite being a leading democratic nation, the united states has always held
a very low spot on the totem pole of voter turnout. What with a peak in 1960 of 63% its clear
that weve never been too big on exercising the very rights we fought to obtain.
The last 2 decades havent been any better. Between 1996 and 1998 there was an
increase in voter registration of 7 million, which sounds great, until you find out that there was
an overall DECREASE in voters of 2.5 million.
That year, 1998, only 16.7 percent of the younger population (ages 18-24) took to the polls.
The millenia saw an interesting (albeit not too incredible) shift in numbers. America,
which had been ranked 140th out of 163 democratic voting countries in 2000, was bumped up
the scale to 120th out of 169 in 2012.
This small increase doesnt really help us any though, because that year our poll
participation was again at a record low.

Political Apathy and Disengagement

People often refer to this stay-at-home epidemic as political apathy and while that is a
real issue, it isnt really THE issue in question.

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Since everyone has some sort of opinion
on politics -- and if you ask, youll see those
opinions are pretty strong -- it would be totally
missing the mark to accuse any of them of apathy.
They do care. a LOT.
Again, theyre not apathetic, theyre
disengaged.
(Disengagement is defined as the action or process of withdrawing from involvement in a
particular activity, situation, or group)

The Effects of Disengagement

Due to the decrease in participation by the
majority of the American people, political parties
and office candidates no longer spend as much
time focusing on grass roots -- the process of
getting as many people involved in the vote as
possible, and getting them on their side -- as they used to. Since the majority of people voting
are either rich or well educated or both, they focus only on the rapidly decreasing portion of
people who WILL take the time to vote, and since the numbers are so small, its getting easier
and easier to sway the vote one way or another.
While this might not sound too bad at first, it IS once you realize that the people theyre
trying to please are the polar opposite of the majority of Americans. They arent middle or lower
class, and often their worries dont align with ours at all.

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Suddenly candidates and parties no longer HAVE to please the majority, because the
majority isnt going to do anything either way, resulting in new bills and laws that dont reflect the
needs of the people so much as the needs of the very few who are involved in the election
process.
On the other side of the spectrum, as more and more people back away from
participating in the democratic system, more changes are being made OUTSIDE of the system,
which, if left unchecked, could result in VERY extreme actions that could potentially affect the
country in unprecedented ways.

Playing into the Candidates Hands

While many people in government would say, upon
being asked, that they would like to see more Americans
politically active, they would be lying through their teeth. See,
by not participating you have just made the chore of reelection
a thousand times easier: By making the pool of electors so
miniscule, they only have a handful of people to please and/or
impress with their incredible people skills. Frances Piven made
the comment that enlarging electorate creates instability, it
creates an incentive for insurgents -- either third parties or
insurgents within the party -- to enter the race
Historically, this has been something all major party advocates are keen to avoid, as
getting a third party member in a more important office could disrupt the way the democrats and
republicans have been running this country for centuries. While that wouldnt necessarily be a
bad thing, at this rate, only the candidates approved by the major parties will ever make it into
office, simply owing to the nature of the voter pool.

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Common Causes of Political Disengagement

The number one cited cause for not voting in elections is that citizens feel their ballot
won't change anything. But you cant explain away disengagement with one sentence. The
factors are endless.
As far as political reason go, many people say that they just dont trust the political
system. Theyll argue that since the political parties ignore their needs anyway, there is no point.
It has become a vicious cycle of congressmen ignoring more and more people because they
hardly participate anyway, and less and less people voting because of this ignorance.

Political Disengagement in Salt Lake City

To get a better understand of the way people in the Salt Lake area feel about politics,
and to see just how widespread the disengagement is, I interviewed multiple people over the
last few weeks.
The results were staggering: 86% of the people I interviewed did NOT vote. Only ONE of
those people expressed apathetic feelings, the rest had solid, in-depth views of American
politics.
What was perhaps the most interesting was how nearly everyone had practically identical
answers.
When asked what power they felt they had, when it came to making a difference in local
and national government, basically everyone said that they felt they had none. Those who
elaborated said that they DID have their vote, but that they dont vote anyway. And those who
do vote said that its not much of a difference when it gets down to it.
Most people stated that they felt barely informed when it came to candidates, bills, and
government in general. The people who voted said that while they do TRY to stay on top of

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things, they find it extremely difficult to get ahold of reliable information about the candidates in
question. One middle aged woman said, in recent years voting records have been almost
impossible to get ahold of, in recent years I am less informed. In previous years I felt I was very
informed, but recently I find it hard to be as well informed as I would like to be. This is a
common thread. One man, a middle aged father studying to become a high school history
teacher, stated that that's one thing with people that are running, you don't know what the
people have voted on or for in their campaign history unless you do some digging and I think
that's key, because if they voted against bills that you were for and vice versa then you need to
rethink your vote regardless of what party they are, because they don't agree with your beliefs.

All of this leads up to a ridiculous 75% of people saying that they have zero motivation to
participate when it comes time for elections, the few people who had more to say than that
simply followed it with whats the point?A young mother stated that The government is power
hungry, and itll never go away. Theyre supposed to be protecting America, but theyre veering
away from core values

Just to reinforce the idea of disengagement, nearly all of the people interviewed stated
that they considered themselves very patriotic. While they disagree with where the country is
NOW, the feel that the IDEA of being an American, with all of the core values intact is still
something to be proud of. When asked what they would change, if they believed themselves to
be more influential, the responses were encouraging. While the most common answer was
might actually vote, the people with more to say had grand plans for redirecting the
government, and working our way back to the pillars on which our country was built on.
One woman had a lot to say, but every bit of it was incredible:

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Clean house: find a way to expose the abuse of power, the wanton waste of tax payers dollars,
and actually get something done that benefits the many not just the few. Control corporate
greed, because right now a lot of the laws are just feeding corporate greed, the so called
"medical care act" has hurt people middle class and down, financially: It doesn't just affect one
thing, it drives everything up, it doesn't just affect on bit of the economy. When you drive up the
cost of living in one part, it drives it all up, i'm not an economist, and don't have any solid
answers, I understand it's complicated, but I would fight to change that, it's not right when the
rich are paying less taxes, and those who make less than 100,000 down to poverty line are
paying more. it's not right.
While my current status on this research isnt totally comprehensive: I only interviewed
middle class and down, it would seem that political disengagement is a growing norm in and
around downtown Salt Lake. But it would also seem that all of these people do in fact have
some incredible things to add to American politics. However, they have made a conscious, often
educated decision to back away from political involvement, making the disengagement
problem into the disengagement position