Just for kicks and giggles, I took a quick tour of the Member's List, and it is amazing when you look on total post column, there are alot of zero's. That tells me that alot of people signed-up and maybe checked the forums out and never posted. Now the percentage of those that come to just lurk...would be interesting.
I worked at this company for over 15 years that had a relatively low turn-over rate so I had the opportunity to know about 40-50 people real well. You could count the number of people who could, or would, talk politics, on one hand. But, you bring up the Red Sox or the Patriots and everybody wants to talk. Also, stupid TV (televisions) shows get alot of talk time.
Maybe, that is why the pro's know that "sound bites" and "headlines" is all the general public really wants to know.
You know, if they had all these mindless "entertainment" sources 230 years ago, nobody would be paying attention and we would be talking with an English accent.