How does the GOP get people to vote against their best interests?

[SpreadItAround]

I mean, it just seems that a lot of the GOP agenda is all about big business yet they've managed to get a lot of working-class people to vote for them.

Is it just that they've managed to scare the shit out of everybody and paint the Democrats as soft on defense or has guns, god and gays really been that effective?

:shrug:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. Simple: they lie, cheat, accuse, if necessary, steal the votes.

[aikoaiko]

2. Depends on what you mean interests.

The republicans say the same thing when people vote for democrats.

[pampango]

23. By "interests" many of us mean economic interests

worker vs. corporation, middle class vs. rich.

All of us have "interests" which are not specifically economic, e.g. abortion rights, gay rights, immigration, terrorism, etc. I think we all are more than just an economic beings with self-centered views of what is best for us economically.

While find a convergence of economic and other interests in the Democratic Party, I realize that others may put a higher priority of an issue that I don't agree with. It doesn't make them idiots or sheeple, unless their beliefs and actions deprive freedoms from others.

[Webster Green]

3. You answered your question: They control with fear..

The GOP base are a bunch of cowards.

[BOSSHOG]

4. Appeal to their ignorance and pride

The lemmings make it oh so easy. And them motherfuckers are extremely ignorant and extremely prideful.

[Avalux]

5. Emotional triggers.

They have learned how to get people to make decisions based on emotion rather than reason. So yes - what you've said is correct - guns, God and gays (throw abortion in there too) are all emotional triggers.

[rudy23]

6. By twisting logic--saying stuff that sounds right, but isn't

90% of America cannot identify a strawman argument. If you take a couple of logistic turns, you can shake most people off your trail.

[Swede]

7. Fear.

Fear is a powerful emotion.

[Hepburn]

11. Yep....

...fear targeted at STUPID people. That pretty much sums up the Repuke appeal.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

8. I think they,

the GOP, are masters are reducing things to one issue. So many people only focus on one thing and let that sway their judgement.
It makes no sense for anyone making less than $100,000 to even give the GOP the time of day......

[SpreadItAround]

16. I was arguing with a family member...

...about Net Neutrality and they were giving me all the usual talking points...government regulation is bad, competition is good, etc., etc. and I flat out asked him "what's in it for you?".

He had no answer just sort of blathered on about how bad government regulation of anything is.

Basically he's against Net Neutrality because he heard some prominent Republicans talk about it is what I gathered.

[Sir Jeffrey]

9. They make them think they are voting in their best interests nt

[izzie]

10. People think like them. Odd but their it is.

--

[bridgit]

12. fear & peer pressure...

[Vinca]

13. Sadly, the sheeple don't delve into things to find the truth.

Take the so-called "death tax," for example. Ask them about it and 9 out of 10 will probably think it applies to them and if they actually know it's for the super wealthy, they're probably clutching a Powerball ticket.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. Thomas Frank wrote a book about it

What's the Matter With Kansas?

http://www.tcfrank.com/wmk.html

Over the last thirty-five years the Republicans have transformed themselves from an aristocratic minority into the nation's dominant political party, a brawling, beer-drinking buddy of the working man. The strategy by which they have won this triumph is instantly familiar and yet so bizarre it's sometimes hard to believe it's actually happened: Think of Richard Nixon extolling the virtues of the "silent majority," or Ronald Reagan shaking his head at those crazy college professors, or George W. Bush sticking up for the "regular Americans," or the army of pundits who have written so eloquently in recent months about the humble folk of the "red states."

And then think of the political changes that this sappy stuff has helped to sell: Privatization. Deregulation. Monopolies in every industry from banking to radio to meatpacking. The destruction of the welfare state. The beatdown of the labor movement. The transformation of the Midwest into the rust belt. And, shimmering in the heavens above all this, the rise of a new plutocracy, a class of overlords so taken with their own magnificence that they are moved to compare themselves to the Almighty.

What we are observing, then, is a populist movement that has done irreversible harm to the material interests of the common people it professes to love so tenderly-a form of class animosity that rages against a shadowy "elite" while enthroning a new aristocracy of bankers, brokers, and corporate thieves.

In the burned-over districts of conservatism the right-wing class war grown so powerful that it has taken over the environmental niche once held by the left. It is the dissenting movement out there, the voice of the hard-done-by, and in places like Kansas it draws headlines with its high-profile campaigns against evolution and abortion.

This is what's the matter with Kansas, and with America. From the air-conditioned heights of a suburban office complex this may look like a new age of reason, with the Websites singing each to each, with a mall down the way that every week has miraculously anticipated our subtly shifting tastes, with a global economy whose rich rewards just keep flowing, with a promotion and a bonus every year, and with a long parade of rust-free Infinitis purring down the streets of beautifullymanicured planned communities. But on closer inspection the country we have inhabited for the last three decades seems more like a panorama of madness and delusion worthy of Hieronymous Bosch: of sturdy patriots reciting the Pledge while they resolutely strangle their own life chances; of small farmers proudly voting themselves off the land; of devoted family men carefully seeing to it that their children will never be able to afford college or proper health care; of hardened blue-collar workers in midwestern burgs cheering as they deliver up a landslide for a candidate whose policies will end their way of life, will transform their region into a "rust belt," will strike people like them blows from which they will never recover.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[MADem]

15. Well, see. When ya win the lottery, ya don't want the gubmint takin' it

in taxes, now, do ya?

They play and prey on HOPES, and when that doesn't work, they push FEARS.

Keep them afraid, and thinkin' they are gonna win the lottery....yeah, that's the ticket$!!!!

[applegrove]

17. All of the above. And they appeal to baser instincts. And get folk

to vote mean under the guise of values. They infantalize their voters and bully them with church and such. Notice how not one finger has been lifted to stop legality of abortions on the whole. They want that issue out there election after election. When will the people who hate abortion so much learn that the only way the USA will stop abortions is by providing good health care to the young.

They use use paranoia....has * done anything to help Muricans heal from 9/11? NOPE. He's the divider.

The political issues * needs are never healed or fixed. They are just carted out for election after election.

[porphyrian]

18. They didn't do it alone.

The Democratic party bears responsibility for part of the blame in embracing corporate and special interest money over concerns of the working class. It is amazing that the republicans have been able to retain the support of the working class despite the stream of intentional and direct attacks on working class livelihood, however.

[conscious evolution]

19. Well oiled propaganda machine.

They have used every trick in the book to do this.
First they got control of the southern babtist convention which they used to directly program people into the required mind-state and to destroy the educational system.
Then they either bought up the media or terrorized the rest into silence.
Then unleashed their pnac plans on the world.Which whipped up a patriotic fever.

All of this together has resulted in people who are incapable of distinguishing what their interest's really are.

[BlueManDude]

20. bigotry n/t

[patcox2]

21. Atheist gay gun confiscators are going to marry your children.

Thats how.

That simple.

They tell the people that the democrats will take their guns, outlaw the bible, and turn their children gay.

And we are so ridden with narrow special interest groups that we dare not say otherwise, as opposed to saying "we're gonna make sure you have good jobs, good healthcare, good schools, and a good retirement."

I don't want to ever hear about guns or gays or atheists or the transgendered again.

[unpossibles]

22. I think it can be summed up by two things: ignorance and greed

* Ignorance applies to not knowing the facts (through propaganda and confusion, a la the Iraq/9-11 connection, etc.). They pump out as much disinformation as they can, knowing that most people won't take the time (or can't) to learn the truth. They also keep things simple for the same reasons - faster communication. Ignorance also covers the ideas of fear, hate, and bigotry.

* the rest is greed. Most people don't want the government taking "what's theirs" even when it's not theirs or when they use government programs and the benefits of society and social programs all the time. Ignorance is also used for the greed of course, to make people who are not rich think that they will benefit from things, but it plays on basic greed: no one wants to share their hard-earned money with a bunch of lazy "socialist" bums. Greed allows well-off gay people to vote to save their pocketbook, even if it hurts their rights. And as someone stated, greed works on the whole lottery culture as well; they are convinced they will win eventually or they would not keep playing. And when they win, they don't want to share that "hard earned money"....

[The Stranger]

24. Religious cults and the "Great Asleepening" going on.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[newyawker99]

26. Hi Beardie!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Iris]

27. They make it seem like a Christian duty.

I live in the South and you'd think saying, "I'm conservative" is the same as saying, "I don't believe in cutting the heads off babies and drinking their blood because, you know, people who aren't conservative, well, that's what they do!"

[LostinVA]

28. Easy

Abortiongaysblacksillegalscommieliberalshillaryclintonpagansatheiststaxesterrorarabs

etc.