This fallacious notion ("against their best interests") is one of the arrogant notions that "Libruls know best". Libruls think that certain decisions are economically-defined. But there are other issues, which include fairness in the tax system, rural-v-urban choices, moral issues, and alienation.
Political decisions are made on the basis of a multi-dimensional hypercube. There are economic considerations. There are moral considerations. There are cultural considerations. What looks like a simple "economic considerations dominate" choice is not that way. So, in many rural areas, there are economic considerations but others as well.
The book "The politics of resentment" is a good one to read. It's about 10 y old now, but probably still accurate. A political scientist from U WI went around to the "discussion clubs" all over WI - groups, mostly men, who gathered for morning coffee to bitch about the government. They all hated the State government, except they like Scott Walker (then Gov of WI). They resented teachers - often the teachers were the highest-paid persons in small towns, and they had a summer off. There was a strong feeling that taxes paid went to Milwaukee, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Madison, and none of it to rural areas.
In addition, the librul notion that "working people support unions" is a huge fallacy. Working people in a union support that union, and hate most of the other unions. Unions raise labor costs. If you are in a union-dominated area, work costs more. When you hire a guy to do a job, in a union area, he will usually tell you "I'm not charging union scale - that's for businesses and public work projects".
My comment stands. When you vote, you do this calculus of "dimension 1-dimension 2-etc". No binary choice is free of the dimensional issue. The voting decision is made by picking the dimension which is most salient, and this may seem "confused" or "irrational" by outsiders. In addition, there is the pull of party loyalty. Many Dems cannot conceive of voting for any Republican, regardless, and this is equally true with Republicans. Look at the Southern voting registrations - the D voters are most common, but the R vote results in R government.
Let's not forget propaganda & mass marketing - things that some people have perfected to both a science & a high art form. Particularly in these days where our hive-of-minds, and (anti-)social media have become so crowded & noisy that we can't hear the voices in our own heads, much less those of those around us. And now we have bots - Colossus & Guardian, SkyNet, Monsters from our collective Id - as Clarke wrote in "Dial F for Frankenstein," "But he knew already that it was far, far too late. For Hoo Sapiens, the telephone bell had tolled."
This fallacious notion ("against their best interests") is one of the arrogant notions that "Libruls know best". Libruls think that certain decisions are economically-defined. But there are other issues, which include fairness in the tax system, rural-v-urban choices, moral issues, and alienation.
Political decisions are made on the basis of a multi-dimensional hypercube. There are economic considerations. There are moral considerations. There are cultural considerations. What looks like a simple "economic considerations dominate" choice is not that way. So, in many rural areas, there are economic considerations but others as well.
The book "The politics of resentment" is a good one to read. It's about 10 y old now, but probably still accurate. A political scientist from U WI went around to the "discussion clubs" all over WI - groups, mostly men, who gathered for morning coffee to bitch about the government. They all hated the State government, except they like Scott Walker (then Gov of WI). They resented teachers - often the teachers were the highest-paid persons in small towns, and they had a summer off. There was a strong feeling that taxes paid went to Milwaukee, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Madison, and none of it to rural areas.
In addition, the librul notion that "working people support unions" is a huge fallacy. Working people in a union support that union, and hate most of the other unions. Unions raise labor costs. If you are in a union-dominated area, work costs more. When you hire a guy to do a job, in a union area, he will usually tell you "I'm not charging union scale - that's for businesses and public work projects".
I said self-interests, not best interests, meaning their own preferred wishes. For example, certainly Blockbuster wanted to succeed financially.
My comment stands. When you vote, you do this calculus of "dimension 1-dimension 2-etc". No binary choice is free of the dimensional issue. The voting decision is made by picking the dimension which is most salient, and this may seem "confused" or "irrational" by outsiders. In addition, there is the pull of party loyalty. Many Dems cannot conceive of voting for any Republican, regardless, and this is equally true with Republicans. Look at the Southern voting registrations - the D voters are most common, but the R vote results in R government.
Let's not forget propaganda & mass marketing - things that some people have perfected to both a science & a high art form. Particularly in these days where our hive-of-minds, and (anti-)social media have become so crowded & noisy that we can't hear the voices in our own heads, much less those of those around us. And now we have bots - Colossus & Guardian, SkyNet, Monsters from our collective Id - as Clarke wrote in "Dial F for Frankenstein," "But he knew already that it was far, far too late. For Hoo Sapiens, the telephone bell had tolled."
I would like to share this with my son, but it won't let me even though it shows his email address.
You can send him the link
https://davidcycleback.substack.com/p/why-groups-make-choices-contrary