Voter apathy is a civic abdication. There is no other way to describe it.That is how he begins this column for Thursday's New York Times.
Trust me, please. This is a column that needs to be read in its entirety, that is not possible to easily summarize or from which one can draw the appropriate extracts.
Blow reminds us of the difference between a Presidentialy election and an off-year like 2010. He puts it bluntly:
There is an astounding paradox in it: too many of those with the least economic and cultural power don’t fully avail themselves of their political power. A vote is the great equalizer, but only when it is cast.Except we now have the advantage of knowing who the shadows are, people such as the Brothers Koch.The strategy here is simple: Break the spirit. Muddy the waters. Make voting feel onerous and outcomes ambiguous. And make it feel like a natural outgrowth of tedium and bickering, and not a well-funded, well-designed effort. Make us subsist on personality politics rather than principled ones.The greatest trick up the sleeves of the moneyed and powerful is their diabolical ability to render themselves invisible and undetectable, to recede and operate behind a front, one relatable and common. Our politics are overrun with characters acting at the behest of shadows.
This is powerful writing, but it is not close to being the heart of the column.
After telling us that " too many people shrug or sleep when they should seethe" Blow hits the