People do not vote Republican because they believe all that shit

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Wed Jul 11, 2012, 04:06 PM - Edit history (3)

People believe all that shit because they vote Republican.

Believing all of that shit is a rationalization, not a cause.

Some people want to believe that the white man traditional business and military culture (or conservative religious culture) has the correct world-view, and that having that worldview makes one superior.

This was not a position arrived at by rigorous comparison of differing views. It was arrived at by very basic human mechanisms of emotional and social identification.

They look at the wealthy and smug and powerful (power including armed authority and power over others in the home and in everyday social interaction) and look at the raggedy-ass have-nots, and they want to think of themselves as being more like the former. Or they look at people who are going to heaven and people who are going to hell.

The rest is just group identification, which usually includes the acceptance of whatever belief system the group holds.

Debunking the belief system does not unravel the identification because the identification was not arrived at through analysis of the belief system. (It is hard to reason someone out of a position he didn't reason himself into in the first place.)

This is not limited to Republicans, of course. Most groups do the same thing, holding a worldview based on identification with a group, and often with little or no rational analysis of that worldview. (As Kurt Vonnegut said, all groups are defined by the lies they hold in common.)

But it happens that the Republican worldview of 2012 is at a Scientology level of rational in-defensibility so the effect is incredibly pronounced.

[unblock]

1. you're right, they want to be on the same team as mr. super-rich.

that actually explains more than the usual "i want my taxes to be low" blinders.
they want what mr. super-rich wants because they envision themselves as mr. super-rich.


this explains how sometimes these people will even vote for tiny tax cuts (or even tax increases) for themselves if it means bigtime lower taxes for mr. super-rich.

[maryellen99]

10. I call them the wannabe 1%ers nt

[joycejnr]

2. I think that's true to an extent, BUT...

...the GOP can't win unless they rouse the base of bigots, religiophiles, and True Believers. Without bogeymen to scare the uninformed voters, the Republicans wouldn't have the numbers in office that they have.

The uninformed voter, the one who just looks at the headlines of the librul media - they're the ones who are easily swayed.

[limpyhobbler]

3. yeah that's part of it.

I also have heard things from relatives of mine such as they voted for Santorum because he wants to put prayer back in schools. He just really does represent them on issues they think are important. The same person, my relative, also believes in demon possession. They aren't even schizophrenic or anything, it's a pretty common world view in that village. Santorum is their guy. People really do believe that stuff.

But what you said goes for many people I suppose.

[cthulu2016]

5. If you showed them evidence that prayer in schools increases sinful behavior...

would they change their minds?

Probably not.

Would they credulously accept silly evidence that school prayer cures cancer? Probably so.

Their position is reasoned backward from an attitude about god and society, and they hold that general attitude because it defines who they are.

"We are godly people."

Start with that identification and then one tends to follow whatever "godly people" are up to. There is no coherent reason that a person who thinks abortion is murder should also favor lower marginal tax rates, but there is a huge overlap of the two views that suggests basic group identity.

A person may have a passionate and personal sense of abortion being murder so they hang out with anti-abortion people. Next thing you know, he is telling pollsters that Obama was born in Kenya. He has no reason to think so except that the believe is correlative with what "godly people" believe.

There are people who think for themselves, but not many. There are anti-choice socialists and pro-choice conservatives... but they are rare.

Most (not all, but most) RW people have one strong RW identifier (e.g., feeling strongly about being white, thinking abortion is murder, wanting low capital gains taxes, a belligerent view of foreign policy, Christian fundamentalism) and then fall into a set of beliefs they did not feel strongly about to begin with, but that are identifiers of who they are or who they want to think they are.

[limpyhobbler]

6. Yeah I guess so.

I'm thinking of a small town in southwest Pennsylvania. I think they identify as working class religious conservatives.

So basically, what you said. They aren't really evidence based.
They really really really like God. How much is just going along with the group vs. true belief, I'm not sure.

These are swing voters. They don't really have a strong party identification. They don't go along with the Republican economic positions.

They will choose a pro-life Democrat if one is offered. Such as Bob Casey Sr. or Bob Casey Jr.

To some extent the trend you describe of RW people having one strong RW identifier and then falling into a set of beliefs they did not feel strongly about to begin with, might not apply to these folks. It does somewhat, but there are other tendencies as well.

The FDR Democrat working-class legacy was so strongly rooted in this area that it hasn't been killed yet. But they also voted for Reagan. They are white but identify more as Italians, or Poles, or Slovaks, or whatever.

I think maybe another shared identity they have is that their views are not really represented by either party and they are never really represented properly in government.

[cthulu2016]

9. Yes. I was careful to say not all because

some people are relatively independent thinkers. There are some very religious people who don't think tax-breaks for billionaires will fix the economy, for instance.

But most people end up self-indoctrinating to fit into the group they identify with. (Watching FOX is a good example of this. A person who watches FOX because it is a "godly" news network will end up believing that Iraq had WMD in 2003 and that Obama has raised their taxes. The same goes for one's circle of friends. Your anti-abortion group is going to include a lot of people who think Obama isn't an American citizen and most of us tend toward attitudes that fit our social circle.

[limpyhobbler]

12. Yeah you got it right.

Correct they are watching the Fox 'News' channel.

And it is having the effect you describe.

There are many birthers around there. That's all identity stuff. There is racism. (I'm not calling my aunts racist, but it's like you said, they just picked up some of the birther stuff from the crowd).

It is a weird little corner of America though.

[nanabugg]

4. Most people who vote Republican just do it because they hate democrats, love to hold on to their

racism and bigotry. They don't even know that Republican elite really scoff and sneer at them...why else would
Rush take pride in calling them ditto heads? And they love it!!!!

[Skittles]

7. most of the people I know who vote repuke

do so because their parents voted repuke

[cthulu2016]

14. sounds like class identification

[FarLeftFist]

8. I think they believe it that BS.

[cthulu2016]

11. It's not whether they believe it, but whether

they would vote differently if they didn't believe it.

They do believe this stuff, but that is not why they are Republicans.

You could spend an hour demonstrating to a Republican that Obama has not raised taxes on anyone, but at the end of the hour they still wouldn't vote for Obama. The claim that Obama has raised taxes is just a rationalization to explain their gut-level antipathy to Obama.

Take that rationalization away and something else will be substituted.

[lumpy]

13. The GOP has fallen into the hands of money hungry capitalists.

The GOP used to merit more respect. It is though they really don't care about the future of the US of A and it's citizens.