What Makes People Vote Against Their Own Best Interests?
This is an excellent read. Most of us liberals have been perplexed as to why any working class stiff (especially those in the lower income brackets) would vote against his/her own best interest and vote for corporate and wealthy interests instead. I am so glad to read that there are those in the field of psychology who are also perplexed enough to research this phenomenon and try making sense as to the WHY people willingly hurt themselves and their families in this political conundrum? Perhaps armed with some answers to this riddle, those who vote against their interests will be able to open their eyes and realize, they are doing themselves in little by little, republican by republican. There I go again DREAMING… thinkingblue
What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working
class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business
Republicans when their economic interests would seem better
served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been
examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us
Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that
strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work
together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and
progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and
unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our
diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality
trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible,
fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty,
change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans
offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and
evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate.
Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded
explorations of policy options for a complex world.MORE HERE
posted by thinkingblue at 10:58 AM
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