"The United States is a sharply divided country with about half the population leaning right, and the other half leaning left."

You are repeating a common error ... call it a math error if you wish. The 2020 election drew the highest turnout in more than a century, with over 65% of the voting age citizens casting a ballot. That is the number that people are looking at when they argue that the nation is evenly divided. But what about the 34+ percent who didn't vote in either 2020 or 2022?

Many of them are registered, but choose not to vote because (a) they are repelled by the false claims and other nonsense; (b) they are convinced that their vote wouldn't matter anyway; (c) voter suppression tactics--once the specialty of southern Democrats, now a major chapter in the G.O.P. playbook--have made it too inconvenient; (d) the process intimidates them because they don't feel that they know enough; or (e) they simply have no interest. Others haven't even bothered to register (for all of the same reasons) and a small minority are unable to vote due to criminal conviction or cognitive disability.

Joe Biden was elected president by barely a third of the potential electorate--not 'half of the population'--and support for Donald Trump was even less. A democracy is a form of government based on majority rule. We don't have that. We have never had that. Singapore held a parliamentary election a few months before our 2020 vote. Over 95% of their potential electorate participated. Some of their laws are a bit draconian, but they have a democracy. They don't see voting as a right as much as it is a civic duty ... just as much as paying taxes is a duty. So in Singapore voting is mandatory ... as it is in Australia, Brazil, Luxembourg, Belgium, Samoa and at least fifteen other nations.

If everyone eligible had voted, would we still be as evenly divided? Perhaps not ... we know that nonvoters (or sporadic voters) are more likely to be younger, members of an ethnic minority, and lower income than consistent voters. And we know that their voices are not being heard. We are the stockholders of the American enterprise and voting is a duty that we owe to our fellow citizens. Maybe it is time to talk about making it mandatory.