The Turnout Conundrum Solved: Illegitimacy

This week the Memphis Flyer has an editorial commenting on why turnout is so low. It talked about feedback of election results, paper trail voting, and media coverage. Editorial ignored the elephant in the room. Surprising, considering one of the Flyer's regular commenters pointed out that elephant a few days ago. Mad_Merc stated "Not just the Democratic party, but politics in general is dead in Shelby County. It's as if the people of the this city have simply thrown in the towel."
That's the heart of problem. The political system is dysfunctional and no longer carries any legitimacy, particularly in Memphis municipal elections. Here's an example. A friend of mine was canvassing early on election day. He tried to give a pamphlet to a white woman in her early 20's and this is what she said. "I'm not interested in voting in the election, I'm only interested in Occupy Memphis." Since I'm a political junky, I find what she said really fucked up but understandable. This woman probably didn't pay too much attention to the council redistricting fiasco in July. (Both I and Vibnic wrote a lot about it, apparently only Allan Wade read it and it got his panties in a knot.) The redistricting directly feeds into the collapse of legitimacy though. In the past ten years the city has seen much change demographically and economically, yet we still operate under a system that explicitly creates racial/class balance on the council that does not exist in the community. We're trapped in 1996.
Another friend called me on election day and asked who to vote for. She said none of the candidates seemed any good or had even campaigned. I explained that the political system is deliberately sabotaged and that this had created negative feedback loops that are driving down turnout and eroding the ability to even have functioning democracy in Memphis. I made her sad. I don't like making my friends sad, but the truth is the truth.
Looking at the above map,it is hard to believe that Otis Sanford was on channel 3, spinning away like Tony Blair, saying people are satisfied with the direction the city is going, that's why many council members ran unopposed and turnout was so low. In the past 10 years Memphis became the poorest city in America. Even the black working and middle class is leaving town. (Has anyone paid attention to the demographic numbers in Desoto County for the last 10 years? Or to get less abstract, football players and their families moving to trailer parks in Olive Branch for better opportunities). Who in their right mind thinks things are getting better, except white folks in East Memphis and even they are getting wobbly. Bike lanes and greenlines only go so far.
I must admit I may be biased concerning Otis Sandford's spinning. I was driving down Union avenue a few days before Thursday's election and I could have swore I saw him walking out of AC's campaign headquarter's. Still I'd like to see some news organizations start to at least look at the possibility that maybe, just maybe, people don't believe in the legitimacy of the political system here in Memphis.
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