That was a funny bit on SNL. I thought James Corden as Boris Johnson was really funny. 

I agree lots of hype in US media regarding the coming presidential race in 2020, but there was lots in 2016  when Donald Trump entered the race.  It is always a mystery why the US has such dreadful voter turnouts for federal elections. 

With all of the media hype, polarization, endless coverage, billions spent on advertising you would think voter turnout would have been strong in 2016.  But only 54.7% of registered voters bothered to vote last time in the US, and this was slightly down from 2012.  Still much better than 1996 when voter turnout was under 50%!

Voter turnout for presidential elections have only been a little over 60% three times since JFK's narrow win over Nixon in 1960. Not to tell anyone else how to run their elections, but something is wrong somewhere.

Maybe the fact that it takes about two years of campaigning and the long complicated primary system of electing a candidate is turning people off or just boring the public?  And of course the antiquated electoral college which nobody seems to understand doesn't help either.

Got to be a reason why all of the media coverage and hype is not matching what is happening at the ballot box with such poor voter engagement. But at least the US keeps it's sense of humour and the campaigns do usually get down and dirty, and usually fairly entertaining.

Last edited by paterson1 (December 9, 2019 4:00 pm)