"We've got 50 percent voter turnout for presidential elections. That's appalling. We can do so much better"
About this Quote
Fifty percent isn’t just a statistic here; it’s a moral indictment disguised as a spreadsheet number. Joan Blades frames turnout like a business KPI that’s failing so badly it should trigger an emergency meeting. The bluntness of “That’s appalling” does rhetorical work: it refuses the cozy American habit of treating disengagement as a lifestyle choice. It reclassifies nonvoting as institutional malfunction.
The subtext is a quiet challenge to the cultural story we tell about elections being the pinnacle of civic life. If the flagship democratic ritual can’t get even a bare majority to show up, the problem isn’t “apathy” in the abstract; it’s friction, alienation, and distrust built into the system and the political product being offered. Blades doesn’t litigate causes in the quote, and that’s strategic. By keeping the diagnosis broad, she leaves room to recruit across ideologies: reformers who want easier registration, organizers who want better candidates, technologists who want better tools, businesses that like stability.
Her use of “We” is also doing heavy lifting. It spreads responsibility outward, away from scolding “those people” who don’t vote, and toward a collective capacity to redesign participation. Coming from a business figure (and, in Blades’s case, a civic-tech organizer), the line smuggles in an entrepreneurial premise: turnout isn’t fate; it’s a solvable design problem. That optimism is the sales pitch, but it’s anchored in a shaming baseline that makes complacency feel indefensible.
The subtext is a quiet challenge to the cultural story we tell about elections being the pinnacle of civic life. If the flagship democratic ritual can’t get even a bare majority to show up, the problem isn’t “apathy” in the abstract; it’s friction, alienation, and distrust built into the system and the political product being offered. Blades doesn’t litigate causes in the quote, and that’s strategic. By keeping the diagnosis broad, she leaves room to recruit across ideologies: reformers who want easier registration, organizers who want better candidates, technologists who want better tools, businesses that like stability.
Her use of “We” is also doing heavy lifting. It spreads responsibility outward, away from scolding “those people” who don’t vote, and toward a collective capacity to redesign participation. Coming from a business figure (and, in Blades’s case, a civic-tech organizer), the line smuggles in an entrepreneurial premise: turnout isn’t fate; it’s a solvable design problem. That optimism is the sales pitch, but it’s anchored in a shaming baseline that makes complacency feel indefensible.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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