From a purely economic point of view, it doesn't make much sense to vote. For an Indvidual voter, the cost of schlepping over to or polling place or even shifting through a large pile of mail to find an unopened vote-at-home ballot dwarfs the marginal impact of their single vote.
(The canonical case is a college student who must choose be…
From a purely economic point of view, it doesn't make much sense to vote. For an Indvidual voter, the cost of schlepping over to or polling place or even shifting through a large pile of mail to find an unopened vote-at-home ballot dwarfs the marginal impact of their single vote.
(The canonical case is a college student who must choose between getting an extra hour of sleep or squeezing in a vote before class.)
This means that voters whose time is relatively cheaper (e.g., retired people) are more likely to vote than younger people.
However, rewarding or punishing potential voters in some other non-material way can change that calculus.
Researchers have shown in controlled studies that voters who believe that their peers will know whether or not they have voted are much more likely to vote.
Likewise, voters who believe that their individual actions are being cosmically surveilled are also more likely to vote when a religious value is effectively on the ballot.
This explains why the abortion issue became so central to Republic Primaries.
After Roe v Wade, every election became an event in members of religions that regard abortion as murder were tested: each vote a believer made (or didn't) became part of their individual records that would count for or against them on their Day of Judgement.
Because of the rules of Republican primaries, getting out the vote is essential. And for Republican candidates, the most reliable way to get out the vote has been to bind an election to this moral contest.
Trump's innovation has been to position himself as the only person whose been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this cause, and therefore, transforming elections that involve him into a personal test with cosmic consequences.
From a purely economic point of view, it doesn't make much sense to vote. For an Indvidual voter, the cost of schlepping over to or polling place or even shifting through a large pile of mail to find an unopened vote-at-home ballot dwarfs the marginal impact of their single vote.
(The canonical case is a college student who must choose between getting an extra hour of sleep or squeezing in a vote before class.)
This means that voters whose time is relatively cheaper (e.g., retired people) are more likely to vote than younger people.
However, rewarding or punishing potential voters in some other non-material way can change that calculus.
Researchers have shown in controlled studies that voters who believe that their peers will know whether or not they have voted are much more likely to vote.
Likewise, voters who believe that their individual actions are being cosmically surveilled are also more likely to vote when a religious value is effectively on the ballot.
This explains why the abortion issue became so central to Republic Primaries.
After Roe v Wade, every election became an event in members of religions that regard abortion as murder were tested: each vote a believer made (or didn't) became part of their individual records that would count for or against them on their Day of Judgement.
Because of the rules of Republican primaries, getting out the vote is essential. And for Republican candidates, the most reliable way to get out the vote has been to bind an election to this moral contest.
Trump's innovation has been to position himself as the only person whose been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this cause, and therefore, transforming elections that involve him into a personal test with cosmic consequences.