I think your examples also show a small minority (not all need to be malicious) to mess things up. One rogue nuclear weapon can screw things up for everybody. I think most people just go along, but generally mean well. If “Did not vote” was running for President in 2016 and 2020 it would have won handily–and those are the elections where I would expect the most participation. I think most people don’t see voting as an effective tool. Most people I know that do vote regularly see it as damage mitigation more than looking for progress. Personally, I also think predisposition to certain jobs, like politician, or certain corporate jobs, skew that thousands-to-one number. I see way more stories about those people being terrible than teachers and nurses quietly doing awesome work every day and there are way more of them.
I think it applies to the pandemic as well. I see 98.5% of people over 65 have been vaccinated in the US. 80% of people over 18. One ranting maskless person in a Trader Joes ruins a whole bunch of people’s shopping experience. Even the lowest rates I’ve seen for vaccination are about half (and it’s difficult to keep the numbers of total vaccinated population versus eligible straight–thankfully that gap has almost closed), which is a whole bunch of people where many are happy to dismiss the whole state.
