Why working-class people vote conservative

[alp227]

Timely article explaining Wisconsin today?

About the author: Jonathan Haidt is a professor of psychology at New York University's Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. To take the survey described in this essay, visit www.yourmorals.org/ express_welcome_sacredness.php

Why on Earth would a working-class person ever vote for a conservative candidate? This question has obsessed the American left since Ronald Reagan first captured the votes of so many union members, farmers, urban Catholics and other relatively powerless people –the so-called "Reagan Democrats". Isn't the Republican party the party of big business? Don't the Democrats stand up for the little guy, and try to redistribute the wealth downwards?

Many commentators on the left have embraced some version of the duping hypothesis: the Republican party dupes people into voting against their economic interests by triggering outrage on cultural issues. "Vote for us and we'll protect the American flag!" say the Republicans. "We'll make English the official language of the United States! And most importantly, we'll prevent gay people from threatening your marriage when they … marry! Along the way we'll cut taxes on the rich, cut benefits for the poor, and allow industries to dump their waste into your drinking water, but never mind that. Only we can protect you from gay, Spanish-speaking flag-burners!"

One of the most robust findings in social psychology is that people find ways to believe whatever they want to believe. And the left really want to believe the duping hypothesis. It absolves them from blame and protects them from the need to look in the mirror or figure out what they stand for in the 21st century.

...

The left typically thinks of equality as being central to fairness, and leftists are extremely sensitive about gross inequalities of outcome –particularly when they correspond along racial or ethnic lines. But the broader meaning of fairness is really proportionality –are people getting rewarded in proportion to the work they put into a common project? Equality of outcomes is only seen as fair by most people in the special case in which everyone has made equal contributions. The conservative media (such as the Daily Mail, or Fox News in the US) is much more sensitive to the presence of slackers and benefit cheats. They are very effective at stirring up outrage at the government for condoning cheating.

Full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/05/why-working-class-people-vote-conservative

[Skittles]

1. no

this is someone twisting themselves into a pretzel to try to explain the unexplainable

[Shagman]

2. it's actually very simple

The right frames things in emotional contexts. Those who get brainwashed by their disinformation make emotional, i.e. irrational, decisions.

The brainwashing is simplified because the right also represents the wealthy. Wealth buys media outlets, i.e. a bigger bullhorn.

You don't need to brainwash 99% of the population, or even 66% or 33%. Forty percent of voters will always vote one way, forty the other. That leaves 20, so you only need 11%. They do the math, they spend the money, they get the votes. Just for good measure, they'll cage and purge and flip voters.

To stem the tide, we only need to knock that 11% down to 9%. They know that too, and they're scared to death.