The problem is these people are voted in by states who comprise of residents who have brain injuries, misogynistic views, extremist ideals, and/or a myriad of other skewed thoughts.
So unfortunately we get stuck with the consequences of other state's resident's decisions
And part of that problem is that the aforementioned group of people deliberately make it harder to vote so that it comes down to whoever they can get more outraged. And guess what kind of people get more outraged?
But much closer to 60% from 2004-2016, and below 60% before that. See turnout statistics. Definitely more than 50% of eligible population typically voting, though.
In presidential elections. Midterms, where people are still elected to Congress, and state and local elections, are also important but see far lower turnout.
I live in Oklahoma, and this is most of the answer.
The reason for that is it's intentionally difficult to vote if you have a job. A lot of managers won't give you time even if they are supposed to. The polling places are typically churches, or old folks homes. My polling place is a nursing home, and every time I vote, there is a line of people who can barely remember their own name getting ready to vote, and it's easy for them because they live there.
So I didn't make the comment that you initially replied to. I was only offering some data that showed there are a lot of national elections where voter turnout was less than half. It's true that presidential elections have a higher turnout than midterm but all of the house and ⅓ of the Senate are voted on in every midterm. They're incredibly important and it's a fact that less than half of eligible Americans turn out for those elections.
"Jerry Springer Goes To Congress" is what happened. Republican strategists know full well that most blue collar people who vote Republican are stupid, hateful, and eat this trashy shit up with a spoon. It's intentional.
American legislatures are surprisingly civil historically speaking when compared to other legislatures. We've had TWO incidents of legislative violence (Sumner slavery incident and 6 January incident). Meanwhile, in Britain, Parliament devolves into a shouting fest every week during Prime Minister's Questions and don't forget how happy Parliament was to send people they didn't like to the gallows in the past. The French legislature did the same.
Taiwan's legislature turns into a free-for-all fistfight whenever the government presents a controversial bill. Japan's National Diet members will literally eat the paper to prevent a bill's passage.
Yeah, there're even YouTube videos about it that get hundreds of thousands of views on the regular. How many channels that feature Congress Cam can boast the same?
We have several cable channels that live stream the US Congress called C-SPAN (1-3). They’ve existed since the 90s. I think they’re also on YouTube, but I’m not sure.
A lot of people have chimed in and I'm surprised to not see the main culprit mentioned.
We have a MASSIVE propaganda problem. We have a press/media system that has COMPLETELY failed in all ways possible, fallen to the typical greed that "ruins" most corporations (quality). We have a population driven to believe that the only people you can trust are people you already agree with so you get your news from Faux News or worse johnny jackass's random podcast with a smattering of Facebook memes and uncle Jimmy's racist rants about Obummer.
Unfortunately I believe we're absolutely fucked. We're a zombie nation trudging along a path to violence that we will not steer away from. The propagandists are pushing us there and we won't stop them as we have afforded them 1st amendment protections that they absofuckinglutley have taken advantage of and hide behind.
The people that should lead us want nothing to do with politics, and I don't think anyone can blame them. That leaves the castle gates wide open for wackos.