I came in here to highlight this because I think what we have now is the result of mass voter suppression, and low voter turnout in the US isn't an accident. I mean, we have a political party that tries as hard as possible every cycle to disenfranchise people and prevent higher voter turnout. They’ve literally admitted this on record and it shows through constantly spreading lies and fear about voter fraud (which is basically nonexistent in the US unless you count efforts to constantly disenfranchise people).
Automatic voter registration, making every Election Day a federal/state holiday, and allowing people with criminal records to vote (like most other democracies in the world) would result in a huge increase in turnout. This is what most other democracies do and of course they have significantly higher turnout, but we know republicans would fight tooth and nail against implementing any one of those changes because low turnout is what they want. This is on purpose.
And like @mastermind said, otherwise eligible people who have no interest in politics didn't reach that point by mistake. We're seeing the results of a system that has constantly dumped on the most vulnerable people and made it that much harder to exercise the most basic part of a democracy. Sure some people wouldn't participate no matter what, but that number wouldn't be nearly as high as it is with just a few changes.
