I wonder whether the appearance of apathy among the voting age people we know reflects more the fact that the election is not right now, rather than the idea that they will never, ever, ever care.
We’re still some ten months out from the election, which is forever away to most people, so Joe and Jane Average don’t have to think about any of it yet. But I would bet that once the election is next month or next week or something like that, that’s when the people who hadn’t been thinking about any of it will start to pay attention, and that’s when they will start to internalize the stark differences between Biden and Trump, the reminders of what Trump did in 2021 as well as during his presidency, the grave threat he poses to our freedoms, and how deeply unqualified he is to be President. They may not be paying attention to any of that now, because Trump doesn’t show up in their video games, or their Tik Tok dance feeds, or on the Golden Bachelor, or in their kitchens or gardens or true crime podcasts. (Well, maybe Trump should be showing up in that last one.) But a dollar to a dime says they’ll be paying attention to it by November 1.
That’s why I don’t take January polls seriously. The sampling for those is among people who are paying attention all the time and who do care all the time. But they probably won’t make up even the majority of the people who cast votes for this election. That majority of voters just aren’t paying attention yet. But I don’t worry that they won’t be when the time comes.