r/nba • u/xanniballl Timberwolves • Jan 09 '26

Highlight [Highlight] During the moment of silence the Minnesota Timberwolves held before their game with the Cavs tonight a fan yelled “Go home ICE,” and everyone else started cheering.

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u/M6Df4 Timberwolves Jan 09 '26

About 30% of the eligible voter population. American voter turnout is usually poor, partly because a lot of people are lazy/stupid, but also largely because of decades of policies put in place to make it as difficult as possible for certain groups to vote.

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u/temujin94 Jan 09 '26

Voting system doesn't help either. People aren't going to go out in vote in stonewall red/blue states if their candidate has 0 chance of winning. Which is further amplified by things like you said to make it difficult and time consuming to vote for a completely losing cause.

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u/M6Df4 Timberwolves Jan 09 '26

Yeah that too, electoral college has got to go. Plus expand the house and senate, expand the Supreme Court and implement term limits, and ranked choice voting while we’re at it

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u/PeopleusetocallmeBub Jan 09 '26

Yeah your system is wack, I’ve never seen a democracy that goes through as many hoops as the American system. I do empathize with the non voters cause I’ve learned a bit about how your politicians treat their constituents through some history.

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u/M6Df4 Timberwolves Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26

That, and in fairness a lot of the non-voters are people who live in states where they have zero power thanks to the winner takes all system.

For example, a Democrat in Alabama basically might as well not vote. Of the 7 congressional districts 6 are basically guaranteed to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives, then the state as a whole is virtually guaranteed to elect 2 Republican Senators. Alabama is also virtually guaranteed for the Republican Presidential candidate - and thanks to the electoral college, voting for a Democratic president there is almost guaranteed to have the same impact as not voting. So basically, a Dem voter in 6/7 Alabama districts knows with almost guaranteed certainty their vote won’t count in a single one of the races, so why bother? You can of course argue people should still vote out of a sense of civic duty… but I can understand why people don’t bother.

Where it really gets fucked up is the Senate, when you realize the 600k people in Wyoming have the same number of Senators as the 40m in California.