Comment by insane_dreamer
9 hours ago
It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.
I mean, name one thing that Trump has done to help farmers more than he hurt them with the tariffs? (Subsidies they already had, regardless of the party in power.)
What are they getting in return for their vote? The safety of knowing that trans athletes are banned and some Guatemalans in far away "liberal" cities have been "gotten rid of"? None of those benefit them in any way. I still can't quite understand.
GOP has long pursued a strategy of getting rural whites to vote against their self interest. This is why they play up cultural issues such as trans people using women's bathrooms and such other topics that uneducated people can readily grasp.
Can urban liberals please tell us how to vote? You can come and help our fingers push the buttons.
Seriously, do you think this works? Do you think urban people living in poverty vote against their interests as well?
It’s easy to say that. I grew up in a dairy county in upstate ny. Solid democrats. The board room of the local farm bureau had photos of FDR on the wall.
The party really abandoned rural voters and farmers. Money in politics didn’t just affect Republicans — the democrats abandoned the traditional party structures and followed the money. There’s no more democratic picnics, etc.
I’m not defending the GOP. They’ve embraced evil imo. But people followed their message because nobody else is talking to them.
> The party really abandoned rural voters and farmers.
Not to defend the Dem party (only the lesser of two evils, at least lately), but in what way? Because farm subsidies seem fairly consistent regardless of which party was in power[0]
[0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-commodity-...
I suppose they've successfully instilled the fear that "our way of life" will be destroyed if they don't vote for Trump, despite 1) being a lie, and 2) a vote that will make things worse for them. It's amazing how powerful these relatively minor cultural issues can be. It certainly makes for interesting case studies for future political science and sociology university (if the humanities survive).
> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.
Something that's been made very clear over the last few election cycles is that a lot of voters will go against their own interests, as long as it hurts their perceived "enemy" more than themselves.
But only one side does this?
Right. This article discusses how race plays a central role in the opposition to universal health care policies like Obamacare, particularly focusing on how some of the resistance in the South is due to white populations not wanting Black Americans to receive free care: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/univ...
I live in a a rural farm land area, the only time I hear racist remarks of any kind is online, usually towards white cis men.
Just an anecdote, but IMO progressive liberals are some of the most racist people I've encountered.
I have family members who didn't like Obama at all, not one of them would ever comment on color, it was his policies.
> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.
Nobody votes against their own interests. That is something that only stupid caricatures do, not actual people. If it seems that way to you, that should be a very strong signal to reevaluate your understanding of the situation. Most likely, that means either nobody is representing their interests or you have misunderstood what their interests are.
You are wasting your time I think. The people here know who the right people to vote for are, anyone who thinks otherwise is voting against their interests.
There is only one comment above that says that both rural and urban people do the same thing, it is all boiling down to everyone should be voting one party.
That's like saying nobody ever gets swindled. If you think someone got swindled that should be a strong signal to reevaluate your understanding of how they wanted to spend their money.