Posted on 02/02/2010 9:31:29 PM PST by Theophilus
Why do people vote against their own interests? Americans voicing their anger at the healthcare proposals at a "town hall meeting" The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US. Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why there is often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters. Last year, in a series of "town-hall meetings" across the country, Americans got the chance to debate President Obama's proposed healthcare reforms. What happened was an explosion of rage and barely suppressed violence...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
The solution will be for them to force themselves on us instead of trying to explain things. It's for our own good.
“Why do people vote against their own interests?”
I have no idea. Why DO people vote for Pelosi, Reid, Obama, etc?
Because the voters know better than the nattering nabobs in the ivory tower.
How in hell did “Dr” David Runciman end up with a doctorate?
This is more of that condescending “What’s The Matter With Kansas” stuff, in which some guy wrote an entire book about why voters allegedly vote against their own economic interests. And he picked Kansas voters as typical of this type of voter.
Interesting that these intellectual educated types all think that the default position is to vote Democrat and support ever increasing liberal government programs. They think something is wrong with people who would vote against government benefits. This shows their bias, doesn’t it?
Condescension from limeys who don’t understand the idea of a “Constitution,” much less liberty, freedom and the American capitalism, all of which have made England a footnote and grandstand observer in modern history.
This article is a blind person explaining why some color combinations don’t match.
The BBC is just awful. The worst of left-wing elitists on the planet.
Govt run health-care is NOT in my interest. Can you imagine that, BBC twits?
Gee, because I don’t want the health care system to look like the Cleveland Public School system?
You elitist British bastards ran your own country into the ground by embracing socialism. Americans aren't interested in ruining their country and don't respect your stupidity.
Ahh so. It’s all because we yanquis are just to stoopid to comprehend the oh-so-cerebral, logical arguments as delivered by the enlightened liberals. It’s the conservative types that appeal to pure brute emotion.
Fascinating. In my own experience, I’ve found it to be the reverse.
Nevertheless, this was educational. I had not noticed that the Thomas Frank of “What’s the matter with Kansas” is the same Thomas Frank who writes those unbelievably snotty, insulting columns in the WSJ opinion section.
And by the way, those townhallers only got riled up when the congresscritters in question either refused to take questions or tried to finesse them with the sort of slick, patronizing answers that may satisfy MSM interviewers but not sentient beings.
*eyeroll* It’s the “What’s the Matter with Kansas” thesis writ large.
The unstated general assumption here is that socialism is good for the middle class, an assumption which is, to say the least, highly debatable.
And if anything, the health care bill empowers corporate America.
If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them. They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.
They also resent being told so by media figures who consider themselves a separate and superior class. In fact, the resentment in the case of the contemporary United States seems to me to be very much focused that direction. How else are we to explain consistent poll numbers indicating that the voters like 0bama but hate his policies?
The author would have done well to conclude with that point. Instead, he falls into precisely the attitude he has just criticized: that the Republicans have chosen to concentrate on stories instead of facts because silly voters, that's what matters to them, and that the old stereotype of the Republicans representing the moneyed elite is still sound:
It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy.
No, actually it isn't. The anger against the elite is very clearly not focused by clever Republican manipulation in favor of the aristocracy, it's against the aristocracy that is the entrenched power in both parties. That is the soul of populism, whether progressive or conservative. Moreover, it is not the Republicans who have been seen throwing obscene amounts of money at the banks of late, for instance, but the Democrats. What is going on here isn't some lumpenproletariat being seduced by smooth talk, it's the very opposite. They aren't voting against their interests at all, but in favor of them, and until the media realize that the rules have changed we'll get this sort of superficial analysis based on painfully ignorant stereotypes. Yes, it is a movement against the elite, and that elite includes the media themselves. That is what's going on here and why it's being so poorly understood and reported.
You forgot the obligatory "Barf Alert".
Where’s the “Barf Alert”?
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? - Matthew 16:26
Some of us think it wrong to put a gun to the head of our fellow humans for profit.
Best answer of the night.
I don’t have time to more than skim the article. But it reminds me of that BBC broadcast I heard on NPR in 2004, which confidently predicted a win by John Kerry, who went to Viet Nam, based on his ancestry’s connections to British nobility vs those of President Bush. BBC needs to STFU!
Why on earth would slaves in the South want freedom, when they already had three squares a day and steady employment?
First, they assume the average person will benefit economically from more socialism despite all evidence to the contrary.
Second, as Marxists they assume that economics are more important than values, and cannot fathom that others believe the opposite.
“Why do people vote against their own interests?”
Maybe because they know that next time, it will be their turn in the barrel.
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