Everybody complains about lower voter turnout...like in the most recent city council election.
But I do not know why.
Perhaps there is nothing more uniquely American than low participation in politics.
We all have these romantic versions of the American Revolutionary War, but even then, there was a significant part of the population that really did not care to express an opinion one way or the other. Some folks were probably too busy trying to avoid small pox, or survive a winter, or plant crops, to really care about what some guy in a palace faraway or a bunch of well-off drunks in Philadelphia thought about governance.
"But Max, you are talking about white guys, and not la Raza! And El Paso is the capital of la Razalandia!"
Fine let's talk about la Raza.
Speaking for myself, my maternal grandparents did not immigrant to the US because they wanted to participate in politics. They had a much more practical reason for coming...job opportunity. At that time, Chicago was the land of opportunity.
Yes, there are many who come here for political reasons, but more still come here for economic opportunities.
It was politics that destroyed the economies of their native lands.
Even though we have federalism and separation of powers which acts like an insurance policy against such political destruction, some folks quite frankly rather not test out that insurance policy.
So do not blame people who are too busy to participate in politics. If anything we should blame people who have nothing better to do other than politics.
But let us also be honest when we bemoan low participation. We complain about low participation when our sides loses, not when it wins.
I am sure City Representative-elect Jim Tolbert probably wished more people participated the first time he ran, this time...probably not so much.