> Evidence suggests that (at least in modern times) the way to get Americans to vote is to so constrain them that they can't do anything else with their time on election day.

In 2020 voting by mail was widely expanded because of the pandemic. In 2024 it was rolled back. It was easier to vote in 2020 than it was in 2024.

I wouldn’t describe voting in 2020 as constrained. More like enabled. It’s the closest we’ve ever been to a voting holiday.

Oh, agreed---the voting wasn't constrained. The people were. You had to make the people so bored that they bothered to fill out the damn ballot and put a stamp on it.

Americans get distracted. That's the big secret. We're such a generally satisfied, busy, and entertained group of humans that we literally can't be arsed to go pull the one lever that is most politically powerful every time we get a chance to pull it. Some people are actively marginalized. Most of us just don't bother to read the one-pager on the county website and then show up in the fourteen-ish hours set aside to do the thing (let alone try to, say, actively study the candidates or the on-ballot issues).

I literally had a young man confide in me day of election in 2016 that he was voting for Trump because he liked him on the TV show. That's your American voter, when they show up at all.

> I literally had a young man confide in me day of election in 2016 that he was voting for Trump because he liked him on the TV show. That's your American voter, when they show up at all.

I don’t find extrapolating a single anecdote to the entire population a compelling argument.

One shouldn't, but it does fit a pattern for American voters; I more intended it as an exemplar of known behavior. Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California on the back of his popularity as an actor, popularity which more-or-less carried him to the Presidency (he didn't have an outstanding record as California governor, unless you count "Passing the most restrictive gun control in history to curb the Black Panthers" as outstanding). Simple name recognition can be a shortcut to the Presidency in the US; Americans don't have a tradition of demanding demonstration of a long career of civil service of their Presidents (with the record, to my knowledge, being the most recent one's first election with "zero previous demonstration").

I'd love to give you some hard data on this in modern times, but AFAICT no polls are even asking questions as simple and obvious as "When did you first hear of Donald Trump?" or "Do you trust an actor more than a politician?"

I just don’t buy these unsubstantiated claims. If you can’t find evidence why do you believe it?

Why does it matter if people trust politicians who were actors more than politicians who weren’t actors? They’re all still politicians when they run.

You’re promoting an extremely negative, defeatist, unsubstantiated opinion and frankly it’s depressing.

> they're all still politicians when they run

Trump in 2016 was able to use his lack of political history as a selling point; with no history of service in office, he'd had no scandals in office. Clinton's long political career worked against her in public perception.

I personally believe that there's some benefit to political expertise and demonstrated history of good choices and good leadership; the American electorate doesn't seem to value these things when they reject a career politician for someone with no track record in the highest elected office... And then reelect him in similar circumstances.

> It's depressing

We're in the second term of President Trump with a Congress that has carried a sub-30% approval rate for decades. I'm not going to be able to offer many optimistic observations about America's Federal elected offices... Or the people who elect them. It is entirely possible the American Experiment ends in this generation with the conclusion that Americans had a good thing going until they lost the tools to successfully self-govern.

I would welcome counter-evidence that didn't fail the conspiracy theory test.