Our political system is much like what you describe, Harry. But the apathy can actually get explained by the way it was set up.

The Founding Fathers purposefully put a voting system in place that restricted the Federal government having to deal with too many different political directions. That was very smart of them because twenty little parties would have torn the country up a long time ago.

The apathy got put in place, however, not by the Founding Fathers who were smart, but the State officials who were… well... not as smart. What they ended up doing was copying and pasting the restricted voting system in place.

To add insult to injury, the State also made it verboten to use the best voting system possible, so most places got that same tired and restricted voting system in place in cities and counties as well.

That is apathy. Getting a chance to get it right, but then the system screws it up, three levels deep.

Compare Norwegian representatives in cities and counties; they have to consider four to eight times more voters than their counterparts in the USA.

This is partly explained by voters showing up in greater numbers in Norway (61% of all eligible voters come out to vote) and partly explained because they don’t have a tired old voting system but a modern voting system (so all voters get the ones they wanted; they do not have winner-take-all like we have with many of us going home being represented by someone we did not want to represent us).

At Local Revolutions grassroots organization, we claim that the Founding Fathers did not intend to do that, and that the Bill of Rights actually demands that Proportional Voting is used in our cities and counties.

If you have a moment of trying to undo your apathy? Come join us in the good fight. Not only can we win, we have the Founding Fathers with us.