Making the most of the East Coast’s overall continuation on its unhealthy path, I had a bit of fun on Twitter, last night, noting the abysmal election returns in Woonsocket’s mayoral race.

• If they were Woonsocket votes, @TedNesi’s Twitter followership would have won. @IanDon’s would have come in 2nd.
• How about this: I got more votes for Tiverton school committee than Fontaine did for mayor.
• Six of seven Westerly town councilors (pop 23k) got more votes than LBH.

The point:

• 11% of the people of Woonsocket elected the city’s new mayor. Rhode-apathy is by design.

Valley Breeze reporter Ethan Shorey asked, “is apathy wrong if residents don’t like either candidate running?” He then told me that (“whoa”) I was “entirely wrong” to suggest that “apathy is part of the reason why they don’t like either candidate.”

But apathy is a wide-reaching rot, not just a failure to show up on election day.  I’ve observed at both the local and state levels that even people who are somewhat involved (say, like reporters who follow politics for their jobs) have an expectation that their neighbors will step forward to volunteer their time, often subjecting themselves to vicious, personal, and localized attacks, out of some mysterious, irresistible motivation.

Rhode Islanders need to stop expecting competent, talented, and honest people to materialize on the ballot when a poorly informed public leaves them vulnerable to baseless attacks, campaign and political events are attended by only the same handful of people, and few other people are willing to volunteer, much less step forward into the spotlight with them.

The oozing sores of pus that are election-day statistics are the symptom; the sense that other people will take care of everything — just because — followed by despair and further disengagement when nothing changes is the disease of Rhode-apathy.