During the 2010 mid-term elections, 16 percent of registered Democrats voted, the lowest Democratic midterm turnout since before 1962. Republican turnout was 22 percent higher.
Hello Mr. and Mrs. Democratic Voter,
How's it goin'? You nice and comfy in your intellectual contempt of those crazy righties? Proud of your responsible even-handedness that dismisses the petty anger motivating the Tea Party extremists to spew absurd hyperbole and vote against their own best interests? You believe the hell out of climate change being real, in the the earth being something over 6,000 years old and that gay couples are not planning to break into your home to rip apart the value of your marriage.
You are good. How lucky you are to have your children and grandchildren grow up in houses that work through differences with calm and civil discourse instead of the rage and fiery engagement that those people partake in.
You don't get angry you get...well you don't get anything because when it comes time to vote, you sit on your yoga-contoured derrieres and let the same people you hold in complete condescension go ahead and make their daft decisions for you.
You sit by and wink (if you're willing to put in that much muscle and sweat) at voter suppression efforts that are being ramrodded into law countrywide.
You didn't speak out against a Republican 527 group ad that told Nevada Latinos, "Don't vote." Not "don't vote" for Democrats." Don't vote for anyone. See, they weren't being partisan. It was probably just a coincidence that most of those Latino voters were Democrats.
You didn't raise your voice when Pennsylvania Republican legislators pushed a bill to disenfranchise minorities and others who were more likely to vote for Democrats. Maybe you're so urbane that you always believe there are two legitimate sides to every issue. After all, Governor Corbett's administration claimed there had been extensive fraud in previous elections. The fact that they could not come up with a single case of voter fraud shouldn't diminish your faith in the two-sided principal.
When Virginia Democratic senator and civil rights veteran, Henry Marsh, was attending the Martin Luther King Day inauguration of Barack Obama, state Republican legislators decided to hold a surprise vote to gerrymander the state into a powerful GOP advantage. Marsh's absence created a 20-19 Republican plurality. In response, was there great surge in Democratic Party voting? I'm guessing there was a day-long "Downtown Abbey" marathon that you just couldn't tear away from to vote.
Don't you understand that those who want to take your power don't want you to vote and you're just accepting it? Do you not realize the greatest achievement in voter suppression comes not from Republican gerrymandering, not from squeezing election hours and not from the needless voter ID laws? It is the Democratic voters themselves who suppress their own ideals by failing to recognize the consequences of vanishing during the mid-terms.
So riddle me this? Are you going to sit out the coming mid-terms...the mid-terms that will determine the local, state and federal legislatures who may very well take away a woman's right to choose? Are you going to wait until the presidential election because you don't believe the peons in these minor elections will affect your privileged way of life? Are you too lethargic to fight the headwinds on the way to the mailbox to drop in your absentee ballot? Or, are you just too above it all to get down in the dirt and voice your best judgment in the voting booth more than once every four years? Can't get angry enough? How about just exercising your right to vote so you can complain righteously about the results?
Your party affiliation won't achieve a single principle you believe in. You may judge your value on your intentions. Everyone else is judging you on your actions. Or lack of same.
The GOP famously characterizes those who believe in the role of government, those who want government to solve problems, as lazy, dependent and negligent. Maybe they have a point. If we can't even be bothered to show up to vote on a regular basis, what could be better evidence of laziness, dependency and negligence?
The question is, will you do anything about your growing lack of responsibility, or will you continue to be satisfied to be the couch potatoes of the mid-terms?
Steve Young is an award-winning television writer and author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful...Mistakes, Adversity, Failure and Other Steppingstones to Success" (www.greatfailure.com)