Why poor area's vote GOP against their interests

[John_Doe80004]

Why Poor Areas Vote For Politicians Who Want To Slash The Safety Net

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/whats-the-matter-with-maine_564fca49e4b0879a5b0b363f|

[COLGATE4]

1. “People waltz in when they want to,” she said,

explaining that, in her opinion, there was too little asked of patients. There was nothing that said “‘You’re getting a great benefit here, why not put in a little bit yourself.’” At least when she got her tuition help, she said, she had to keep up her grades. “When you’re getting assistance, there should be hoops to jump through so that you’re paying a price for your behavior,” she said. “What’s wrong with that?”

There, my friends, you have the Rethuglican 'philosophy' in a nutshell. Can't you understand? Why the hell aren't we expecting more from dialysis patients? Just because these are people who are rapidly approaching end-stage kidney failure doesn't mean that they shouldn't "put in a little bit of themselves". I mean, after all, if you get tuition help you're expected to maintain a certain minimum grade level. So why shouldn't we require those nearly comatose patients to "jump through some hoops", in order to be sure that "they're paying a price for [their] behavior".

Stunningly ignorant, cold, callous and self-centered. Today's Republican voter in a nutshell.

[proverbialwisdom]

2. Seen this?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/20/verging-on-plutocracy-getting-real-about-the-unelected-dictatorship/

...liberal mainstream political scientists Martin Gilens (Princeton) and Benjamin Page (Northwestern) reported last year, the U.S. political system has become “an oligarchy,” where wealthy elites and their corporations “rule.” Examining data from more than 1,800 different policy initiatives in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Gilens and Page found that wealthy and well-connected elites consistently steer the direction of the country, regardless of and against the will of the U.S. majority and irrespective of which party holds the White House or Congress.

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” Gilens and Page wrote, “while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

As Gilens explained to the liberal online journal Talking Points Memo (TPM) last year, “ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States.”

Links:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9354310&fileId=S1537592714001595
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/princeton-scholar-demise-of-democracy-america-tpm-interview

[fasttense]

3. The article assumed that the vote count was actually how the voters voted

Today, assuming the vote count is an accurate reflection of how voters voted is to assume we do NOT vote on black box voting machines.

But I have met a few stupid RepubliCONS who live in trashy houses and trailers and think RepubliCONS have thir best interest in mind and it is always about something else.

There were these elderly women on the street corner handing out RepubliCON flyers. I asked them why they are supporting a guy who said he was ging to cut their Social Security. They said oh he's Not going to do that. He's just saying that. A little more conversation and it became apparent that those old white ladies were racist and they believed the RepubliCONS were only going to cut AA's, but they used the N word, and poor white trash's Social Security. When that came out of that sweet little southern lady's mouth, I about choked.

[mac2766]

4. This is a MUST read if you ask me.

Answers several questions that I had. Great article.

[demigoddess]

5. there is also the fact that Rush Limbaugh spent years on the radio

telling people that they would be rich if only they followed the principles of the GOP. If only their tax money wasn't wasted on poor(er) people. He also spent years convincing people that it was a good thing to grow up poor as they would be rich later on. Pure propaganda-brainwashing technique. And many people in smaller towns have little else to listen to, so they get brainwashed.

[CTyankee]

6. He got it that people a notch up need to look down on someone else below them on the ladder.

"after me, nobody else!" seems to be the idea...

[Doctor_J]

7. There also isn't a stark alternative

Not much will be different in these people's lives if Clinton becomes president. The choice between a Trump, say, and a corporate democrat means little to them. Abortion rights are not enough to get them to vote en masse.

[markpkessinger]

8. Saw this article on Common Dreams' site, and posted the following comment to it . . .

This is, I think, a really excellent analysis of the much discussed phenomenon of poor and working class voters who vote against their own interests by supporting Republicans. What the article doesn't really get into, though -- and I wish it did -- is any discussion of the psychology of those who draw a sharp contrast between the assistance they once received, and those who currently receive assistance. So I will posit a hypothesis of my own (which I wish some researcher somewhere would figure out how to test).


I think what is going on here is a kind of psychological or emotional hedge on the part of the gainfully employed about the precariousness of their own situation. Let's face it: the prospect of being unemployed and the thought of the financial insecurity that would result is profoundly anxiety-inducing for nearly everyone. For some people, I think that anxiety is so intense, so debilitating, that they need to construct mythical narratives -- about themselves as well as about others -- in order to reassure themselves that "there, but for the grace of God, _don't_ go i." )And for people living in rural areas, where well-paying jobs are often very scarce, that anxiety will be magnified all the more.) That is, the very thought of finding themselves in the position of needing assistance is so unsettling, they need to find ways to distance themselves, in their own minds at least, from the prospect of finding themselves in that position. They do that by telling themselves that those who are now in that position of needing assistance are "lazy," or "don't want to work," are are "too entitled to be deserving" of the very same assistance they once received.


They further tell themselves that their own relatively good fortune has resulted purely from their own hard work, or from the "value" they bring to their employers. Meanwhile, the reality they don't want to face is that their employers, in most U.S. states, can fire them at any time, for any reason or for no reason, and that such decisions often have very little to do with the "value" of an individual employee to his or her employer. But so long as they believe their own good fortune has occurred solely as a result of their own virtue, and that others' misfortune has resulted solely from those others' bad character or poor decisions, they can keep themselves safely ensconced in their illusory bubble of security -- a security, they believe. that is exclusively within their control. And unfortunately, until reality comes crashing in on their precious illusion, nobody will be able to convince them otherwise.