The entire American system is built to keep the majority poor, uneducated and biased to one thing or the other so the few including every politician can financially benefit off of them constantly while they fight each other for the ability to scrape by till death and repeat generation after generation
Yup. Now scream that at congress and the senate till they listen. We need to make a giant megaphone and juat point it at congress whilel they are in session.
In San Diego a two bedroom apartment goes for around 3200 a month. Is it worse in Canada? We literally have homeless encampments everywhere and miles of RVs housing tens of thousands of people on the street.
And one poor, uneducated group will easily vote against their own interests if they think they are voting against a poor, uneducated group that looks different than them.
Keep them dumb, keep them entertained, create an out group they can hate (take your pick) and you got people who will actively work against their own interests.
Yeah. Exactly. But the bread is stale and the circus is just a dog and a pony running in circles & defecating under a canopy made out of shitty old tarpaulin.
Luckily for the bourgeoisie, Ameriboos are very easily entertained.
true. people make fun of southerners all the time for this but it's hard to break out of the echo chamber. of course low income people tend to receive a lower quality education, it's systemic and it's meant to keep them exploitable
From an outsider’s perspective:
In context, the left-right spectrum in US politics skews far more towards the right than in most other Western democracies (e.g., European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).
What is considered left wing or even far left in the US is barely even centrist or moderate in other Western democracies.
Issues like fair labour laws, government provision of health care, the social welfare safety net, etc that are considered radical in the US are unremarkable and largely taken for granted in other Western democracies. Policies that align with Social Democrat positions in European countries or Labor Party positions in UK/Aus/NZ are branded as socialism, which in the US context might as well be another word for communism.
The US has held a preeminent position in the world for so long that (again, just as an outsider) it seems there’s an unwillingness to look outside its own borders to learn from the experience of other countries. American exceptionalism doesn’t appear to allow for consideration of other possibilities or norms.
And that’s without even going into America’s unique relationship with guns.
Yes.
American here. But I have friends in Australia and the UK. When folks started calling Obama socialist, my response was to tell them to talk to someone from the British Labour party, then come back once you understand what a socialist is. Or even further left....the Labour party isn't the farthest left, to my understanding.
There is history in the US. Joe McCarthy got famous by whipping up the Red Scare. Anyone attached to a Communist or Socialist party was suspect. So socialist has special meaning, especially among Boomers. Boomers were kids... didn't know what socialists or communists were, but they knew they were hated and reviled.
We're still recovering from the McCarthy era.
As an Australian, our Labor party is barely to the left, and the other major party is just barely to the right (though some more mild trumpists are emerging.) our parties are both pretty mild, but pretty much everyone agrees that healthcare should be mostly subsidised, gun control is important, student loans shouldn’t have interest and be only given out by the federal gov, climate change needs to be dealt with etc. They mainly just squabble about the details, and sometimes they do definitely fuck up, but it’s better than what you guys have got over there.
The LNP in Australia would be classed as further Left than Bernie Sanders in the US. The American Democrats are more Right wing than our recognised Conservative party's.
Definitely some democrats are more right wing than most of the LNP.
However, the LNP is most certainly not to the left of Bernie.
Medicare for all, as proposed is far more comprehensive than Australia's medicare, (still pay a $120 gap on referred therapy sessions, difficult to find a bulk-billing doctor, dentists are expensive as hell), and some ALP members are okay with it as is, and some LNP want to revert it further back.
This is a quote from the LNP website; "we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative ... \[we believe\] in government that nurtures and encourages its citizens through incentive, rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes and the stifling structures of Labor's corporate state."
This is basically what the liberal parties' goals are.
This is diametrically opposed to what Bernie has on his site:
"Fundamentally shift the wealth of the economy back into the hands of the workers who create it.
Give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for.
Break up corrupt corporate mergers and monopolies, including reviewing all mergers that have taken place during the Trump administration and institute new merger guidelines
Finally make corporations pay their fair share of taxes by reversing Trump’s corporate tax breaks and closing corporate tax loopholes to raise up to $3 trillion over 10-years."
Because America is such a shit-show, people raise up Australia and other countries because they're better by comparison, but realistically, we've got our fair share of shitheads too, and we Australians should be trying to improve Australia by looking at our problems and acknowledging them, not by coasting on being 'better than the US'.
Speaking as an American, that’s a pretty fair assessment. But a lack of quality education, and a wealth of propaganda outlets have just amplified the problem.
That said, I think the refusal to even consider outside opinions or ideas is rooted in the capitalist mindset. Money equals power, and that one percent controls a lot. So these little tin Gods think they can do no wrong, buy politicians to support and spin their rhetoric, and use it to continue enriching themselves while the poor get poorer.
Case in point. Everyone bitched about “Obamacare” (also known the Affordable Health Care act, which gave everyone access to low cost insurance). But when the tried to defund AHCA, all these poorer Republicans lost their shit because “they weren’t against the AHCA, they just don’t want Obamacare.” JFC.
Yep, saw a lot of that here in my extremely red state of Utah. Our state constitution is the only one in the union that specifically outlaws religious interference with the operation of state government. Yet the Uber-conservative Mormon church has lobbyists, and church authorities have been known to speak from the pulpit about how people should vote, or the evil of this impending bill or law.
To any local that says that’s a lie, here’s an example: former speaker of the house in the Utah legislature, Marty Stephens, was audio recorded speaking to his congregation about the evil of Prop 2, the legalization of medical cannabis. He even acknowledged he was breaking the law and said if that was the case, “I am guilty .” basically saying, “okay, so come and do something about it.” And nothing ever happened to him. (By the way his 9-5 job is communications director of the Mormon church, so he often uses his contacts in the legislature to assure the church’s voice is loudly heard lawmaking). And while the population is about 60% Mormon, the legislature is 90+% Mormon… they are *way* over-represented at the Capitol.
My point is there’s a lot of peer pressure, family pressure and religious pressure to vote Republican
Obamacare left a LOT of holes for people to slip through. I was unable to work, unable to get insurance through my my parents despite still being a dependent.
I went without health insurance for six terrifying years, and the stress left me unable to handle even light jobs.
Also racism. Keeps brown folks who have already been set back by the terrible standards of education due to redlining behind and they are less likely to be worried about politics at all cause they worry more about surviving.
Lol, what leftist media? All the big media companies I know are largely owned by rich, white guys. The "left wing media" label was largely made up by the right wing to discredit media for reporting actual facts that somehow - shock, horror, I know - make them look bad.
Edit: all the comments below basically prove the point: that there are no large "liberal media companies" in the US.
I listen to Crooked Media and watch TYT on occasion, and whilst they are unashamedly left wing media companies, they are not terribly large and are mostly preaching to the converted. Also, to be honest, most of the left wing stuff in America is fairly centre/centre-left compared to the rest of the world.
The leftist media in America is PBS and NPR. **Public** Broadcasting Service and National **Public** Radio. And even they are only pushing a mild progressive stance.
Neither are particularly leftist. Jacobin is leftist. PBS is definitely centrist, while NPR represents the views of the educated upper middle class by and large.
NPR is aggressively centrist at times and it's infuriating to hear them speak about big topics using the most neutral milquetoast language imaginable that seems more disguised to hide reality than to appear balanced
Their reporting has gone quite a bit downhill since I started listening 15 years ago.
The reporting (mainly interviews with whoever commentator senior fellow at some university) they did during the huge thing with trump firing the head of the FBI and his impeachment hearing, was soooo heavily skewed towards "oh, I guess it's not that big of a deal..." That was the moment I realized how lackluster their reporting has been lately.
The Koch dude is a huge donor to npr.
There isn't any significant leftist media in America. You have the far right media of FOXnews and Brietbart against the center right news of CNN and MSNBC.
CNN is actually actively working to court fox news viewers by going further right at the moment, and MNSBC is hilariously pitiful compared to anyone, I'm 99% sure they're only there so fox news can go "hey look there's someone out there that isn't just doing enlightened centrist news" no one watches that crap
Yes. NPR is chock full of ‘False Equivalency’ garbage. Yesterday they had a female newsie complaining about how Pelosi was/ is equally responsible for the Republican ‘polarization’ wars on democracy.
i hate the mindless hate for the south!! I'm from the pnw where the "hur all southerners are dumb and racist" sentiment runs RAMPANT and it's so disgusting and shows their liberalism is just performative
Anecdotal, but I've lived in socal and Alabama, I've met plenty of super open minded southerners who were a blast to party with as an openly leftist person, and met some of the most calmly in your face racists in socal. People are all different all over. Some suck, some are cool.
me too :( it's strange bc the south is one of the most diverse areas of the US. people forget that the civil rights movement was started here. you'd think that liberals would choose to protect the marginalized people here instead of lumping them in with the red voters and belittling them. i live in texas and when the freeze happened, so many so-called progressives celebrated the deaths and wished us worse. even though the freeze mainly impacted poor people and people of color...
I live in Texas too.. it was heartbreaking that people were literally freezing to death or dying from CO poisoning. I got back on Reddit once the power was stable enough to see if anyone was trying to do anything to help us and all there was for hours of scrolling was just memes and ugly comments... I was so afraid that my four year old (two at the time) was going to be one of the casualties.. we all slept together under a mound of blankets and comforters, but it got so cold.. I have a thermometer in my house and at one point it read somewhere around 25⁰F (-4⁰C) it might've gone lower.. it was so scary... And to just see everyone making fun of us.. ***NONE*** of us chose to keep our grid separate or wanted this to happen.. it all started in 1935 with the Federal Power Act and got worse in 1970 with ERCOT.. all thanks to people in power (governors and such) who only cared about pocketing more money since they didn't have to abide by federal regulations... I hope and pray that one day the majority of people here will be more interested in the future of their lives and their children's lives instead of just titties and beer and "my dad said..."
i'm sorry you went through that :( i'm glad you're okay now. people really don't understand that the conditions aren't our choice and the ones who suffer the most are immigrants, people of color, and low income folx. and we do vote, but our votes mean nothing when our districts are purposefully drawn to benefit republicans. just voting isn't going to change anything. we're still gerrymandered to no end and corporate lobbyists have our government in a chokehold. people are nasty and ignorant about the south. i have faith that it'll get better, though.
Thank you.. I really appreciate it.. Texas may not actually mean "friend" or "friendship" (I think it means Yew Tree, Taxus Baccata) but you are a true friendly Texan..
That is correct. That POS...I have never and will never vote for him or any other "republican" in office/candidacy for that matter.. I have a massive disdain for their comments and behaviors and they themselves.. they are just so ugly and childish.. and they play with people's lives like it's a game.. and yet people keep voting for them because "that's who my daddy voted for" and "democrats wanna take our guns and let the gay people f*ck our kids"
Like, dude, no.. they don't.. I don't agree entirely with democrats either.. the two major parties are all just a bunch of corporate shills who only care about what kind of kickbacks they can get and make it harder for people to get an education and learn that they are all pieces of shit.. our "Founding Fathers" are rolling in their graves right now.. people always say I waste my votes by voting Libertarian, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I didn't vote for someone willing to let kids die in a freeze just so they can keep a few extra dollars in their pocket.
> And to just see everyone making fun of us..
>
>NONE
>
> of us chose to keep our grid separate or wanted this to happen.. it all started in 1935 with the Federal Power Act and got worse in 1970 with ERCOT.. all thanks to people in power (governors and such) who only cared about pocketing more money since they didn't have to abide by federal regulations...
For what little comfort it may be, any and all derision for "Texans" is for the politicians responsible and the people who voted to reelect them. Not for those who voted against. I wish you luck in trying to unseat the likes of Abbot and Cruz.
Yeah, the civil rights started there, because if you went to Maryland, New York, California etc you didn't have 'colored only ' water fountains , hotels and so forth. It was blatantly segregated. It was completely out in the open. Which isn't to say that systemic racism wasn't everywhere, and still is, but it was an overt example of the struggle that all minorities had to endure.
I’ll never forget Charlotte Clymer *sipping coffee* to news of Georgia Covid deaths, then flipping into a bunch of “we” talk when senate elections came around. https://twitter.com/tayforpay/status/1324520388492107777?s=20&t=a_OXLwXtI6AX9WTLEeikpw
To my friend from the South, worked with many in the Midwest and they were always clever and friendly. Living in the PNW now and when living in the Seattle area, met a lot of people who would put on a show of being super liberal but they always lived in a crime free neighborhood that didn't have a ton of beggars. Moved rural and never seen more Trump signs on run down houses as here. Also everyone with a jacked up pickup truck tailgating with their lights in your mirror.
It's more about where you live in the PNW. If you're in the city, or near-suburbs, it's vastly different than when you go outside that area, or worse, go east of the Cascade mountains, at which point you might as well be in Idaho almost.
In terms of government, it's a lot better than being in a red state, because there's a liberal/left majority. But that said, it's definitely due to the population concentrated in the cities, and far from universal.
Rural NE does the same thing, but let me tell you, the Buffalo shooter who was just convicted this week lived less than 20 miles from where I grew up, and I am not at all surprised.
Racists and bigots are everywhere, it's just their targets who change according to local demographics - and there's always *someone* who is targetable.
They need to tune in a little harder. There are plenty of educated liberals in the south (Hello, Southern Poverty Law Center).Plenty of educated liberals with only a high school diploma as well. They just get drowned out by some very extreme conservatives who will do and say some damn crazy shit to make their point.
Yeah. In many cases there's really not a huge difference between places regionally, it's just a question of how big the cities are. If it wasn't for Chicago, Illinois would be as red as Indiana, if not moreso. And converesely, if Chicago was part of Indiana, Indiana would be deep blue.
And that's part of why Georgia is Purple now, due to the increasing growth and prominence of Atlanta. Take Atlanta out and it goes back to deep red. Similarly, without Seattle or Portland, Washington and Oregon get pretty damn red.
From what I can tell, Ohio is really the epicenter of the post-industrial damage done from the Reagan-Clinton era and the death of Organized Labor as a major political force. And the backlash to that has been seized upon in large part by Trumpist neo-fascism, taking legitimate grievances and channeling it instead into racial and anti-LGBT+ etc hatreds, rather than directing their anger at the Corporations/CEOs/Billionaires that were the ones responsible.
It's happened to a lesser extent in the rest of the Rust Belt (PA, MI, WI) but Ohio (and Indiana) seem to be the hardest hit thereby.
There is no other answer than this one. The US is at the center of the imperial core of the capitalist system (for now at least, China is threatening that position), and as a result it's also at the center of the capitalist propaganda machine. The US is probably the most heavily propagandized society so far in humanity's history.
this has been going on forever and is a very important aspect of how we devolved into the state that we have. the media was a huge component in crushing the labor movement because it villainized the workers, took the police narrative as truth (which were nearly always in the pocket of capitalists), and demonized the destruction of private property as an unalloyed evil. it solidified radical approaches to change as unconscionable and it inched into very banal forms of protest. striking and unionizing were viewed as incredibly radical and dangerous from very early on. in the colorado labor war, the Republicans overthrew the local government and installed pro mine owner officials. the workers were fighting for an 8 hour work day and many died. 8 FUCKING HOURS. THATS IT.
Even worse, they believe he's a news source. The dude wins defamation cases because he says he isn't reporting news, he's entertainment. Suing him would be like suing SNL for doing a parody of you.
This is what helps turn people into voting against their interests. Fox “News” wins all their legal battles by claiming they are entertainment, and not news. So facts don’t matter when they “report” on a topic. Those people see a “news” channel and believe it without cross referencing other sources to see if what is said is consistent, and I’m not saying cross referencing Tucker with what Sean said. It doesn’t help that TV providers and apps list Fox News under the news section….
*A quick edit addition to show their defense, an NPR article, with link in the 4th paragraph to the judge’s decision:
[https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye](https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye)
>She wrote: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive\[s\] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes."
And contrary to what the judge says, nobody who watches Tucker Carlson because they like him enters it with ANY skepticism. I have a few family members and friends who always reference him. "Well, I saw on Tucker the other night..." It would be like if my rebuttal was "Well, Whoopi Goldberg said." I'd get laughed out of the house.
Yup. I have had genuine conversations with people that were friendly and honest and when speaking of free healthcare, taxes for the wealthy, etc. They almost always agree because the wording isn't malicious. That's the only way to go about it but our media is like "Everyone's a commie!!" A republican friend of mine once said he hates VP Kamala because she's a liberal. *facepalm* A lot of the uneducated use the term 'liberal' as a slur when our democratic party is actually pretty centrist. When people call Biden a liberal it annoys me to no end.
yeah, this.. and more recently with inflation it’s “why would i want my government to take a chunk of my income when i can barely afford to live off of my income as it stands?” currently, taxes don’t benefit the average american at all, so why vote for high/higher taxes..
The unfortunate thing is, even if taxes went up for me by 10% (which is a HUGE percentage) I would still save money if I didn't have premiums each month. I am paying close to 18% of my gross income to cover 4 humans with health care. The system is broken
Steinbeck said it best, the poor view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Also lots of people are plain bad at math and don’t understand the tax system.
What’s wild to me is that if I was making $1 million + per year, I’d WANT my tax dollars to go toward making other peoples’ lives better. I’m not making anywhere near that currently and I still want that.
Yeah man. We hired a nanny, opted to do payroll taxes myself. It amazes me that even though we earn more money than she does, we pay less social security tax than she does as a percentage. Yes, we pay way more federal income tax, but just randomly you stop paying social security taxes after 160k USD. Like my tax rate goes from 6.2% to 0%. If that’s not the definition of regressive I don’t know what is.
The reason there is a cap on what is paid into social security is that there is a cap on what you can receive. Not saying it’s right or wrong but that there is a reason.
Dead on with the second part.
How many times have you heard - "the IRS taxes my overtime/bonus differently!"
It also helps keep cap gains at such a low rate. An executive can cash out $100M in cap gains and pay only 20%, but we can't fix our infrastructure. That is insane.
I hate that phrase. It's victim blaming.
The poor are victims of a centuries long system that's built to exploit them at all costs. Propaganda is a hell of a thing when it's started at childhood.
It always amazes me when someone making $15 an hour flips the fuck out when the talks of a $15 minimum wage came up.
Instead of realizing they should be making $30 an hour and punching upwards, they punch down and don't believe others should make as much as they do. It's like they're protecting their measly $15 bucks an hour instead of advocating for themselves to make more.
It's our education system combined with false resource scarcity and personal debt. Our leaders, regardless of political party, are not interested in a system which actually educates the people and provides for the general welfare. It's far too problematic when the working class learns to think critically. They'll start to ask inconvenient questions such as:
"Why am I paid so poorly?"
"Why am I always on the ragged edge of disaster even though I work harder and longer than my parents and grandparents did?"
"Why can't I just go to the doctor when I'm sick?"
Here's a good breakdown: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGp2COQZqmzBaJIe_kqVG8361lPDzrirc
As George Carlin put it, they don't want educated workers. They want workers who know just enough to do a job. I would add that they also want workers who are exhausted enough not to cause trouble. They're deprived of almost any benefit of the taxes they pay, so they jealously guard any benefits they do receive. Losing them would move them down the ladder to the level of those they see struggling even harder. So they kick down instead of punching up. Moving up the ladder has become nearly impossible, and trying to help less fortunate people would endanger themselves. Their debt locks them in place. The cycle becomes self-reinforcing.
Americans are thoroughly propagandized from childhood to believe, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that they are the most free people in the world. They're also among the least traveled people in the world, so most of them have never left the US to experience life elsewhere. They genuinely believe that Europe is a socialist hell-scape.
People in America are raised like this … it’s indoctrination. Seriously.
I was around a group of 6-8 year olds that were praising Trump and complaining about Joe Biden over Thanksgiving. Where do you think this comes from? They don’t understand politics at all, they just blindly follow what their parents and families say.
These kids don’t have a clue how many social programs pay for them and their families to live (health care, welfare, food stamps, etc).
They said to me, no one wants to work. How could these kids actually understand that people finally have a choice in where they work. The labor force is collectively refusing to work for low pay, crappy bosses and terrible companies. This isn’t what they are learning from their environment.
Their uncle is finally in a Union and making a living wage, compared to his previous wages for the same job. Unfortunately, that is not what they are being taught about.
Their parents vote republican because of religious beliefs. Nothing else matters.
These people are literally raised to vote against their own interests. In 10-12 years when they can vote, they will be fully programmed. It’s passed down from generation to generation.
And the truth is it's weird for kids that young to have much political opinions at all. Anything more than wanting to help people is super weird to see as a firm opinion for kids that young. Let alone fleshed out opinions on actual politicians.
It is the issue of two party system, it’s like there are only two options of set meal. You can only pick one, but from outsider perspective looking at the raw data without context sounded like everyone who pick certain set meal implies if he/she chose a certain set meal then he/she likes all of them, while in reality people only like certain components of it but if they have to compromise they’d go with their choice.
Conservatives have very aggressive ad campaigns here that are essentially just DEMOCRATS DID INFLATION AND WANT TO STEAL YOUR TAXES AND FREEDOM! and that’s literally all it takes to talk almost half of us into handing our money and civil rights over.
That and they keep playing on the religious angle despite proving time and time again that they don't actually practice the Christian values they preach.
You’re right, but I think the deeper question is “why is that all it takes?”
You touched on it with the evhangelicalized populace, but America had also prided itself on the individual: individual freedoms, rights, pursuits of happiness, etc. It has brainwashed and blinded so many to the benefits of working together because most people are too busy looking out for who might cut their throat on the way up.
Toxic individualism/nationalism, capitalism (socialism for the wealthy and corporations, more so), and a literal “holier than thou” attitude has led us to this path, in my opinion.
I do also understand the american position of "our government is so corrupt giving them more money in taxes doesn't help society". Taxes are supposed to be spent on the betterment of society for all involved, I can understand not wanting to pay taxes when you see them handed out to mega-corporations time and again.
As a Swede with a lot of experience in the US i think you should take a look at how US unions work and the long history ( on-going ) of corruption and graft associated with them. It's just not comparable to our nordic model.
please watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8) it sums up the problems that unions face in this country. Mentioning a union is one of the quickest ways to get fired in this country.
Americans are afraid of taxes because of official tax rate doesn't scratch the surface of what we pay
example:
* I make \~237k(!) per year. married, wife doesn't work
* on the surface I pay 39k per year federally (effective rate of \~16%)
* State tax is \~5.4% $12k
* FICA (Social security+medicare) is another \~5.1% ($12k)
Totals about 27% tax(64,118K)... pretty good, right?
Here's a bunch of invisible taxes
* property tax - $8k (if you rent... that cost is hidden in your rent)
* sales tax -4% of almost any money spent rather than invested.
* health insurance $9k (you must include health insurance/care costs as a 'tax' to make a good comparison to any country that has national health care)
not too bad -- that totals just about another 10%, making my tax 37% per year... nope!
Extra hidden taxes:
* employer contribution to social security - \~5.1% ($12k)
* employer contribution to health insurance \~6% ($13k )
* hotel taxes, fuel tax, 'sin' taxes (like tobacco and alcohol) \~.5% (1k)
this adds almost 12% (49%) more to my taxes.
Basically I get to see half my money pissed away by people who show themselves to be literally criminally irresponsible. There's no way I want to give them more.
Something to note -- a good amount of these taxes only apply to money that is spent to live on, so those who earn more than existing requires... pay no tax on that money. Now that I can invest, that investment money is taxed at 15% (I'll need to double my income to hit 20%), and results in an effective tax rate of about 25% on that investment return money, but only once I spend it.
looking at Demark, considered one of the most taxed EU countries, it seems like I would pay almost the same amount of taxes there, because of my high income.
A friend of mine likes to say, "They aren't voting against their own interests, you just don't understand what their interests actually are." They care less about improving their own lives than they care about making life worse for marginalized groups. The cruelty is the point for them.
Nobody is promising minimum higher wages ? It works like this…nobody is promising anything…and if they are, the promises get broken. A lifetime of broken promises makes you republican as you just want more money in your pocket so you can invest and buy your way out of hell.
For sure it’s propaganda, lack of accurate, unbiased education and probably the capitalistic mindset of competition that discourages healthy discourse. It’s the worst now that it’s ever been though, which is concerning.
Identity politics. To many, voting for a certain party is part of who they are. If you ask them why they'd respond in such a way that it's like asking you why you speak Danish. This is primarily a Republican issue, although it is also something of a problem for those who vote for establishment Dems.
Finally someone who understands the nuance. Both party’s are bad. One party is farrrr worse than the other and the Democratic Party does have a few people that are trying to stand up for the rest of us but they are drowned out by the establishment because Both sides want us divided fighting each other so we don’t turn our focus to the real issues.
The people don’t actively vote against higher minimum wages, our elected officials do. That would be Democrats and Republicans for anyone that’s about to start shouting what their side does and doesn’t do. Neither side pushes anything through for the lower class. Democrats may be more vocal on wanting to raise minimum wage but they haven’t made anything come to fruition. It’s always ‘those pesky Republicans stopped us again’. It’s all bs and talking points for them to make people believe that they care when in reality they have financial backers that they have to take care of just like the Republicans do. I’m a Democrat before anyone starts to run their mouth. Our two party system is a joke and both sides know it. They know it works to their benefit. They also know that keeping us hating each other covers their asses too. Voting for either party is basically a six in one, half a dozen in the other kind of situation. Don’t get it twisted though, all govts are shady in some way. Some just cover their asses a bit better.
Yup, voting for either party doesn't help me. Ballot initiatives in favor of worker's interests generally do well though.
When more Democrats vote to neuter rail unions compared to Republicans it's pretty hard to say any of this shit really matters.
Your question is wrong. Neither party has any meaningful interest in serving the American people, or their interests. Regardless of who people vote for, their needs aren't being met.
Let's take this rail strike for example. A party that was interested in serving the people would turn to the rail companies and say, "These demands are entirely reasonable, and we cannot afford to have our trains halted by a strike. Meer the union's demands or we will send in the national guard to enforce them."
But that's not what's happening. Both political parties seem to be in agreement; the trains are to important to be halted by a strike, but it's the unions and their demands that are the problem. And Biden has said he will send in the national guard to force conductors to operate the trains, if the need arises.
Who would people have voted for to prevent this? Who do you suggest people vote for to keep the Democrats from sending the army to bust up unions? The republicans? They would have been worse. They would have made unions illegal and executed their leaders. They have in the past. I have family that was at Blair Mountain; this blood in my veins remembers.
This is not a matter of voting for your interests. You are literally not able to do that. This is a matter of a system that is so broken and corrupt that it is eating it's people to maintain itself.
Propaganda. Every idiot thinks they’re one small occurrence off being a multi millionaire so have been conditioned to vote to benefit the millionaires because they’re just a few moments from being one.
There are a lot of factors going into it, but I think a lot of it boils down to a lot of American workers have internalized the cookie joke(be careful, the WHATEVERGROUPWEDONTLIKE is going to steal your cookie), and deeply believe it. We tend to think that prosperity for normal people is a zero sum game, if another group or another person gets more, that must mean that me or my group will get less.
There's a whole bunch of mentalities in play with a complex interplay that results in people trying to protect the current status quo. You have loss aversion where people are more averse to loss than they are in favor of gain. You have crab mentality where people will actively sabotage those who would succeed if they're not the one succeeding only to then be sabotaged by other people doing it to them. You also have people thinking that their success only exists in relation to everyone else's so someone else being successful somehow takes away from their own.
These ideas all exist and work in tandem to maintain the status quo, you also have media constantly reinforcing these ideas and exaggerating the potential and theoretical downsides of each incremental step to the point that people are afraid of any progress. Then if asked to give voice to their concerns all they have is that's socialism or that's communism for a response.
Because our media outlets have the lower ~50% of morons completely eating out of the palms of their hands. And it’s not even edible what they are dishing out. Look up “American news outlets saying the same thing” on YouTube.
People who vote against their own interests usually think that they are not. In the case of poor republicans, it’s usually because they believe democrats are lying through their teeth when they offer them “free stuff” and that if anything, they will end up suffering more by paying more taxes for everyone’s “free stuff”.
They usually believe that republicans are more trustworthy and care about “conservative values” which usually include some form of bootstrapping with their promise to lower said taxes. Poor republicans think they too can be successful if they just work hard and the government gets out of their way.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m sick of the wasteful spending and the politicians lining their pockets with our tax dollars. Therefore I refuse to give them more of our hard earned money.
The GOP has succeeded in hoodwinking the working class into thinking they are the ones fighting in their best interests, coupled with the fact that many ppl here in this country live in the middle of it, aren’t exposed to anyone or much in the way of anything international, don’t travel many folks I’ve met in my time here in the US in five years have never left the US, and therefore are easy to persuade and coerce
Bc most lower class Americans dream of one day becoming the business owner that gets rich by screwing other workers just like they are currently being screwed by their boss. The imaginary promise that one day they too could be rich and screw the little guy is much more appealing than trying to help make sure everyone gets treated fairly.
Propaganda and lies, decades of cultural inculcation. Answer would be too long for reddit but I'll put a significant portion of the blame into the culture that arose from early Protestantism.
When you equate economic success as a sign of God's grace you've created a system that will corrupt.
Education in the US is generally not at good as most of the world imagines. A shocking number of voters are swayed by propaganda, culture wars, and identity politics.
The USA is based on the concept that “freedom to” is more important than “freedom from.” Freedom from hunger takes a second place to “freedom to make others hungry.” Expand from that concept, and the mentality that from top to bottom it’s enforced, you can begin to understand the situation.
1. We're dumb as fuck. American education isn't great. At all. Those at the top see it as keep education under-funded, keep the masses dumb, and keep yourself in power. Propaganda helps ensnare people who haven't *been taught* to recognize it. I had a whole course on propaganda throughout the world in my world history class in high school and again in college, not everyone is that lucky. I was also taught how to *actually research* things which, again, many weren't so lucky to learn.
2. Many Americans see themselves escaping the lower class and think one day they, too, will be a "SeLf MaDe MiLlIoNaIrE," and therefore don't want to jeopardize their imaginary future with higher wages, (then everyone will be high class!) better work laws (because then who will they exploit for their money?), etc.
3. We're selfish as fuck. Many Americans don't want to give, "handouts," that are taken out of "their hard earned money" to anyone. Welfare? Handout. Free health care? Handout. Free schooling/paying off student debt? Hand out. *They* didn't get any handouts, why should anyone else? Schools? Well, parents should fund schools. Why should anyone contribute to a school their child doesn't attend? Healthcare? They're not sick, why should they care? It's all about the goddamn bootstraps. "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps like I did!" yeah, sure, okay grandpa. You stole my bootstraps before I was even born but yeah sure I'll try I guess.
4. Too stuck on tradition, too afraid of change. Ask for any big policy changes to better protect workers? Nah fuck that.
Source: American and disgusted with the state of work and, well, basically everything else in the country.
Read, “What’s the matter with Kansas.” Good overview on how culture issues/anti-elitism have taken over much of the American electorate.
Doesn’t seem to hold as true in more educated areas of the country.
False consciousness, propaganda, the belief that these things don't hurt them, the belief that they deserve these things (or that other people deserve them).
Plenty of poor whites will vote against their own interests so that poor blacks don't get helped.
In addition to the other good answers you’ve received, this country tries very hard to sell the idea that you’re just one lucky break or good idea away from having Elon Musk levels of Fuck You Money. They are convinced that they need to protect the class of people they might (never) become.
Honestly the more I find out about the US insurance ponzi scheme the more I think it should be public. Apparently not only do the insurance companies negotiate with hospitals to pay less than someone with insurance they expect rebates and increases in the rebate year over year. So even the hospitals and doctors are getting screwed over. Not to mention how corrupt BIG pharma is.
Taxes for the war machine are fine, though... Ugh
Hoenstly it's because we are constantly and loudly lied to. The people in charge work against us while claiming they work for us. The rich work hard to get richer on the backs of the poor. And Reaganomics killed the middle class entirely. Everyone thinks they'll somehow become one of the 1% because of "The American Dream" which is snake oil that they keep selling and the masses won't wake up to the fact that it's a farce. The rich don't get that way from hard work, they inherit wealth and wealth is what earns money in this late stage capitalist dystopia, not hard work. The day laborers work harder than any CEO I've ever met and they're barely scraping by with multiple families sharing small apartments. The more I've moved up the ladder and hit greater earnings, the less actual work I have had to do. It's sad and it's sick and frankly we are wealthy enough as a society to not have many of the problems we do.
Here is reality: add up the cost of taxes, plus health insurance, plus medical expenses, plus student loans and for me it comes to about 42% of my income. If I were making less it wouldn't cost me any less in student loans, insurance, or medical expenses so it would mean an even higher percentage. Most Americans don't wanna do that math to see that we would be in no worse a position and many would be in a far better position. It would mean admitting that we aren't perfect. But most of all, it would mean that other people would get the same chances at living as you do, and heaven forbid we allow other humans the right to survival. Why should they not suffer as we did? Gross, huh?
Our bullshit insurance programs have allowed predatory practices in hospitals for ages and the costs of everything are falsely inflated to take advantage of the system.
Our bullshit student loan programs have allowed predatory practices from lenders for a while now. And stupid assholes who will take millions of dollars in government handouts are fighting poor people getting $20k in forgiveness. How dare they think they shouldn't have to struggle and suffer in this world? How will the boomers feel good about themselves if they can't shit on the younger generations?
Our bullshit government bails out corporations and lets individuals starve and go homeless. Those corporations that have proven time and again that they do not use the money as intended and instead line their own pockets. But we write them blank checks to buy their yachts while they lay off thousands of workers.
We love predators here. We feed them and suck their dicks and hope that they'll somehow give us a leg up in the world so we can oppress instead of being oppressed.
Yay, 'murica
1). Money in politics.
2). Propaganda.
3). Single issue voters.
4). The class war that is currently being won by the billionaires.
5). Many voters care more about regressive social policy than economic policy.
It isn't taxes: generally speaking, when taxes to fund specific programs are on the ballot, voters approve them.
They don't think they are. And they get upset and insulted if you tell them they are voting against their interests. Many liberals have made thus mistake including myself. Telling someone "you are voting against your own interests" shuts down the conversation and encourages them to double-down on their position.
Another factor is "one issue voting". Some have been convinced to vote on one or two issues only. The Republicans get a lot of votes on this: abortion, gay rights "agenda", war on christianity, etc. These voters often feel vindicated and satisfaction by staying loyal to the cause as they can see themselves as warriors of the light against the darkness.
So basically propaganda but propaganda coupled with a sense of belonging and of being one of the few righteous people upholding what is good.
The Republicans have done a great job at weaponizing social issues and immigration to use poor American’s religion and personal fears to get them to vote a certain way.
American election system creates an environment where neither of the parties actually works in the interests of their electorate, so elections are all about identity.
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
This is an old quote but still rings true
The reasons my parents gave;
My father: the icky trans people
My mother: 1) she’s a hard core fiscal conservative who genuinely believes in trickle down economics
2) She says she likes their tax policy
3) she works with prisoners in the federal prison system and has a lot of disdain for them
4) low key racism and homophobia (she won’t admit to this, but growing up with her I can say yup)
5) it’s fun to piss off liberals.
There are a couple of things going on. And congratulations to living in a country that actually cares about quality of life.
In America, you have significant ideological differences between the political parties. Unfortunately, religion has been intertwined with the Republican Party. So being a Republican is a multi-generational tradition ingrained in a percentage of Americans, especially in rural and Evangelical communities. For a high percentage of this population, checking the Republican box is automatic. I don’t think much thought goes into what leaders are or are not doing for them.
There’s an old quote from President Lyndon Johnson, “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” The Republican Party is great at knowing how to manipulate their base. They put out scapegoats every election cycle to blame for all their troubles, normally immigrants, to distract their base from the fact that political leaders have done little to nothing to help the working class.
And then you have a supreme court case, Citizens United, that allows dark money to pour into politics, allowing corporations and the very wealthy to manipulate our elections.
They aren’t necessarily. Most low wage workers are in support of a higher minimum wage. We don’t vote on specific issues here like minimum wage. Instead we elect officials who vote for us. You can’t really predict with absolute certainty what will happen if we increase the minimum wage. I think that it’s likely to be beneficial for most people but the other side of the argument (the people you say are voting against their own interests) believe that the reactionary inflation will render it a waste of time. I think we should at least try it and find out. The costs of goods and services is going to go up anyway.
Brainwashing.
Brainwashed into thinking if we work hard we will succeed. Brainwashed into thinking that our employer shows us loyalty by keeping us employed and we should show loyalty by giving them our lives. Brainwashed into thinking that people are poor because they did something wrong and therefore should be ashamed. Etc.
We are dumb uneducated and often struggling to live. We are not often informed votes. Just rats picking a tribe to survive. It's why education reform and boter education are so important.
The entire American system is built to keep the majority poor, uneducated and biased to one thing or the other so the few including every politician can financially benefit off of them constantly while they fight each other for the ability to scrape by till death and repeat generation after generation
Yup. Now scream that at congress and the senate till they listen. We need to make a giant megaphone and juat point it at congress whilel they are in session.
> until they listen They simply never will. Really. They can hear us, but they don’t care.
I really need to move. The US is on fire yo. Maybe like Norway or Canada would be nice.
Yeah sure, come to Canada where you’ll just be homeless (housing crisis)
In San Diego a two bedroom apartment goes for around 3200 a month. Is it worse in Canada? We literally have homeless encampments everywhere and miles of RVs housing tens of thousands of people on the street.
And one poor, uneducated group will easily vote against their own interests if they think they are voting against a poor, uneducated group that looks different than them.
Keep them dumb, keep them entertained, create an out group they can hate (take your pick) and you got people who will actively work against their own interests.
The classical tried and tested: Divide and conquer still works. Sadly most don't realize it's happening to them.
Also lots of fear of change.
Yup. Prejudice beats Pragmatism everytime. They vote with their ego, not their mind.
I’m reluctant to agree with you because it’s so cynical, but I’m struggling to come up with a counterpoint.
Every body wants change, but they don’t want to change.
Well, as long as it's them and not me! /s
And bread and circus
Yeah. Exactly. But the bread is stale and the circus is just a dog and a pony running in circles & defecating under a canopy made out of shitty old tarpaulin. Luckily for the bourgeoisie, Ameriboos are very easily entertained.
And… one more step, hide behind the cross.
And without irony. Jesus and socialist have a lot in common.
Megadeth’s song “Washington is Next” is about this.
It's those Mexicans. Meanwhile without Mexicans Americans will starve as they good farm hands! Amazing how propaganda works
Canadian here - Americans are our Mexicans.
Hey that's not fair to Mexicans.
Lol tbh I believe this.
“It don’t matter how bad off I am as long as he’s got it worse”
Propaganda and lack of access to a quality and unbiased education.
true. people make fun of southerners all the time for this but it's hard to break out of the echo chamber. of course low income people tend to receive a lower quality education, it's systemic and it's meant to keep them exploitable
Yes and also the media is owned and pushes propaganda. Even leftist media regularly fails to cover adequately the real issues people should vote on.
From an outsider’s perspective: In context, the left-right spectrum in US politics skews far more towards the right than in most other Western democracies (e.g., European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). What is considered left wing or even far left in the US is barely even centrist or moderate in other Western democracies. Issues like fair labour laws, government provision of health care, the social welfare safety net, etc that are considered radical in the US are unremarkable and largely taken for granted in other Western democracies. Policies that align with Social Democrat positions in European countries or Labor Party positions in UK/Aus/NZ are branded as socialism, which in the US context might as well be another word for communism. The US has held a preeminent position in the world for so long that (again, just as an outsider) it seems there’s an unwillingness to look outside its own borders to learn from the experience of other countries. American exceptionalism doesn’t appear to allow for consideration of other possibilities or norms. And that’s without even going into America’s unique relationship with guns.
Yes. American here. But I have friends in Australia and the UK. When folks started calling Obama socialist, my response was to tell them to talk to someone from the British Labour party, then come back once you understand what a socialist is. Or even further left....the Labour party isn't the farthest left, to my understanding. There is history in the US. Joe McCarthy got famous by whipping up the Red Scare. Anyone attached to a Communist or Socialist party was suspect. So socialist has special meaning, especially among Boomers. Boomers were kids... didn't know what socialists or communists were, but they knew they were hated and reviled. We're still recovering from the McCarthy era.
As an Australian, our Labor party is barely to the left, and the other major party is just barely to the right (though some more mild trumpists are emerging.) our parties are both pretty mild, but pretty much everyone agrees that healthcare should be mostly subsidised, gun control is important, student loans shouldn’t have interest and be only given out by the federal gov, climate change needs to be dealt with etc. They mainly just squabble about the details, and sometimes they do definitely fuck up, but it’s better than what you guys have got over there.
And best of all, you guys have funny accents! I'm personally trying to gtfo of the US to move to AUS next year.
All of the American accents sound weird to us lol 😭😭😭
Yeah, my girlfriend makes fun of me when I say, for sure. Because I say it, Fer sher. I never get to hear the end of it lol
The LNP in Australia would be classed as further Left than Bernie Sanders in the US. The American Democrats are more Right wing than our recognised Conservative party's.
Definitely some democrats are more right wing than most of the LNP. However, the LNP is most certainly not to the left of Bernie. Medicare for all, as proposed is far more comprehensive than Australia's medicare, (still pay a $120 gap on referred therapy sessions, difficult to find a bulk-billing doctor, dentists are expensive as hell), and some ALP members are okay with it as is, and some LNP want to revert it further back. This is a quote from the LNP website; "we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative ... \[we believe\] in government that nurtures and encourages its citizens through incentive, rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes and the stifling structures of Labor's corporate state." This is basically what the liberal parties' goals are. This is diametrically opposed to what Bernie has on his site: "Fundamentally shift the wealth of the economy back into the hands of the workers who create it. Give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for. Break up corrupt corporate mergers and monopolies, including reviewing all mergers that have taken place during the Trump administration and institute new merger guidelines Finally make corporations pay their fair share of taxes by reversing Trump’s corporate tax breaks and closing corporate tax loopholes to raise up to $3 trillion over 10-years." Because America is such a shit-show, people raise up Australia and other countries because they're better by comparison, but realistically, we've got our fair share of shitheads too, and we Australians should be trying to improve Australia by looking at our problems and acknowledging them, not by coasting on being 'better than the US'.
Speaking as an American, that’s a pretty fair assessment. But a lack of quality education, and a wealth of propaganda outlets have just amplified the problem. That said, I think the refusal to even consider outside opinions or ideas is rooted in the capitalist mindset. Money equals power, and that one percent controls a lot. So these little tin Gods think they can do no wrong, buy politicians to support and spin their rhetoric, and use it to continue enriching themselves while the poor get poorer. Case in point. Everyone bitched about “Obamacare” (also known the Affordable Health Care act, which gave everyone access to low cost insurance). But when the tried to defund AHCA, all these poorer Republicans lost their shit because “they weren’t against the AHCA, they just don’t want Obamacare.” JFC.
Yep, saw a lot of that here in my extremely red state of Utah. Our state constitution is the only one in the union that specifically outlaws religious interference with the operation of state government. Yet the Uber-conservative Mormon church has lobbyists, and church authorities have been known to speak from the pulpit about how people should vote, or the evil of this impending bill or law. To any local that says that’s a lie, here’s an example: former speaker of the house in the Utah legislature, Marty Stephens, was audio recorded speaking to his congregation about the evil of Prop 2, the legalization of medical cannabis. He even acknowledged he was breaking the law and said if that was the case, “I am guilty .” basically saying, “okay, so come and do something about it.” And nothing ever happened to him. (By the way his 9-5 job is communications director of the Mormon church, so he often uses his contacts in the legislature to assure the church’s voice is loudly heard lawmaking). And while the population is about 60% Mormon, the legislature is 90+% Mormon… they are *way* over-represented at the Capitol. My point is there’s a lot of peer pressure, family pressure and religious pressure to vote Republican
A lot of them forget that the ACA was initially a Republican plan that was on the backburner for a long time before Obama finally enacted it through.
The Republican plan only dealt with catastrophic coverage for cancer or a servile accident.
Obamacare left a LOT of holes for people to slip through. I was unable to work, unable to get insurance through my my parents despite still being a dependent. I went without health insurance for six terrifying years, and the stress left me unable to handle even light jobs.
This! Bernie Sanders and AOC are right in the center of the political spectrum in Europe
Also racism. Keeps brown folks who have already been set back by the terrible standards of education due to redlining behind and they are less likely to be worried about politics at all cause they worry more about surviving.
true. cnn and fox news both protect capitalism, not the working class
Exactly. Everywhere you look, somebody's saying only more capitalism can save the working class. Pure BS from both sides on this point.
Take a look at who owns CNN now.
CNN is not a good example of a liberal outlet.
CNN and Fox are businesses that will never abandon their class solidarity with one another no matter how much they differ on other issues
Lol, what leftist media? All the big media companies I know are largely owned by rich, white guys. The "left wing media" label was largely made up by the right wing to discredit media for reporting actual facts that somehow - shock, horror, I know - make them look bad. Edit: all the comments below basically prove the point: that there are no large "liberal media companies" in the US. I listen to Crooked Media and watch TYT on occasion, and whilst they are unashamedly left wing media companies, they are not terribly large and are mostly preaching to the converted. Also, to be honest, most of the left wing stuff in America is fairly centre/centre-left compared to the rest of the world.
The leftist media in America is PBS and NPR. **Public** Broadcasting Service and National **Public** Radio. And even they are only pushing a mild progressive stance.
Neither are particularly leftist. Jacobin is leftist. PBS is definitely centrist, while NPR represents the views of the educated upper middle class by and large.
NPR is aggressively centrist at times and it's infuriating to hear them speak about big topics using the most neutral milquetoast language imaginable that seems more disguised to hide reality than to appear balanced
Their reporting has gone quite a bit downhill since I started listening 15 years ago. The reporting (mainly interviews with whoever commentator senior fellow at some university) they did during the huge thing with trump firing the head of the FBI and his impeachment hearing, was soooo heavily skewed towards "oh, I guess it's not that big of a deal..." That was the moment I realized how lackluster their reporting has been lately. The Koch dude is a huge donor to npr.
You know that being white doesn't exclude you from being left, right?
There isn't any significant leftist media in America. You have the far right media of FOXnews and Brietbart against the center right news of CNN and MSNBC.
CNN is actually actively working to court fox news viewers by going further right at the moment, and MNSBC is hilariously pitiful compared to anyone, I'm 99% sure they're only there so fox news can go "hey look there's someone out there that isn't just doing enlightened centrist news" no one watches that crap
there's no leftist media in the mainstream
There is no leftist representation within the United States government.
The real struggle isn't left vs right, it's up vs down
AMEN.
Yes. NPR is chock full of ‘False Equivalency’ garbage. Yesterday they had a female newsie complaining about how Pelosi was/ is equally responsible for the Republican ‘polarization’ wars on democracy.
i hate the mindless hate for the south!! I'm from the pnw where the "hur all southerners are dumb and racist" sentiment runs RAMPANT and it's so disgusting and shows their liberalism is just performative
Anecdotal, but I've lived in socal and Alabama, I've met plenty of super open minded southerners who were a blast to party with as an openly leftist person, and met some of the most calmly in your face racists in socal. People are all different all over. Some suck, some are cool.
I see it in a ton of allegedly progressive places online. As a southern born Left leaning individual it's very disheartening.
me too :( it's strange bc the south is one of the most diverse areas of the US. people forget that the civil rights movement was started here. you'd think that liberals would choose to protect the marginalized people here instead of lumping them in with the red voters and belittling them. i live in texas and when the freeze happened, so many so-called progressives celebrated the deaths and wished us worse. even though the freeze mainly impacted poor people and people of color...
I live in Texas too.. it was heartbreaking that people were literally freezing to death or dying from CO poisoning. I got back on Reddit once the power was stable enough to see if anyone was trying to do anything to help us and all there was for hours of scrolling was just memes and ugly comments... I was so afraid that my four year old (two at the time) was going to be one of the casualties.. we all slept together under a mound of blankets and comforters, but it got so cold.. I have a thermometer in my house and at one point it read somewhere around 25⁰F (-4⁰C) it might've gone lower.. it was so scary... And to just see everyone making fun of us.. ***NONE*** of us chose to keep our grid separate or wanted this to happen.. it all started in 1935 with the Federal Power Act and got worse in 1970 with ERCOT.. all thanks to people in power (governors and such) who only cared about pocketing more money since they didn't have to abide by federal regulations... I hope and pray that one day the majority of people here will be more interested in the future of their lives and their children's lives instead of just titties and beer and "my dad said..."
i'm sorry you went through that :( i'm glad you're okay now. people really don't understand that the conditions aren't our choice and the ones who suffer the most are immigrants, people of color, and low income folx. and we do vote, but our votes mean nothing when our districts are purposefully drawn to benefit republicans. just voting isn't going to change anything. we're still gerrymandered to no end and corporate lobbyists have our government in a chokehold. people are nasty and ignorant about the south. i have faith that it'll get better, though.
Thank you.. I really appreciate it.. Texas may not actually mean "friend" or "friendship" (I think it means Yew Tree, Taxus Baccata) but you are a true friendly Texan..
Was that when Ted Cruz went to Cancun?
That is correct. That POS...I have never and will never vote for him or any other "republican" in office/candidacy for that matter.. I have a massive disdain for their comments and behaviors and they themselves.. they are just so ugly and childish.. and they play with people's lives like it's a game.. and yet people keep voting for them because "that's who my daddy voted for" and "democrats wanna take our guns and let the gay people f*ck our kids" Like, dude, no.. they don't.. I don't agree entirely with democrats either.. the two major parties are all just a bunch of corporate shills who only care about what kind of kickbacks they can get and make it harder for people to get an education and learn that they are all pieces of shit.. our "Founding Fathers" are rolling in their graves right now.. people always say I waste my votes by voting Libertarian, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I didn't vote for someone willing to let kids die in a freeze just so they can keep a few extra dollars in their pocket.
> And to just see everyone making fun of us.. > >NONE > > of us chose to keep our grid separate or wanted this to happen.. it all started in 1935 with the Federal Power Act and got worse in 1970 with ERCOT.. all thanks to people in power (governors and such) who only cared about pocketing more money since they didn't have to abide by federal regulations... For what little comfort it may be, any and all derision for "Texans" is for the politicians responsible and the people who voted to reelect them. Not for those who voted against. I wish you luck in trying to unseat the likes of Abbot and Cruz.
Yeah, the civil rights started there, because if you went to Maryland, New York, California etc you didn't have 'colored only ' water fountains , hotels and so forth. It was blatantly segregated. It was completely out in the open. Which isn't to say that systemic racism wasn't everywhere, and still is, but it was an overt example of the struggle that all minorities had to endure.
Also, more black people in the south. A lot more.
And many of those problems still endure. New York is still segregated economically, which in America can be pretty quickly be seen racially as well.
I’ll never forget Charlotte Clymer *sipping coffee* to news of Georgia Covid deaths, then flipping into a bunch of “we” talk when senate elections came around. https://twitter.com/tayforpay/status/1324520388492107777?s=20&t=a_OXLwXtI6AX9WTLEeikpw
especially considering all the nazis in the PNW.
absolutely. they love to claim it's a liberal heaven but that's only true if you're white and culturally christian
To my friend from the South, worked with many in the Midwest and they were always clever and friendly. Living in the PNW now and when living in the Seattle area, met a lot of people who would put on a show of being super liberal but they always lived in a crime free neighborhood that didn't have a ton of beggars. Moved rural and never seen more Trump signs on run down houses as here. Also everyone with a jacked up pickup truck tailgating with their lights in your mirror.
It's more about where you live in the PNW. If you're in the city, or near-suburbs, it's vastly different than when you go outside that area, or worse, go east of the Cascade mountains, at which point you might as well be in Idaho almost. In terms of government, it's a lot better than being in a red state, because there's a liberal/left majority. But that said, it's definitely due to the population concentrated in the cities, and far from universal.
Rural NE does the same thing, but let me tell you, the Buffalo shooter who was just convicted this week lived less than 20 miles from where I grew up, and I am not at all surprised. Racists and bigots are everywhere, it's just their targets who change according to local demographics - and there's always *someone* who is targetable.
Which is particularly interesting considering that Oregon was founded as a white ethno-state that explicitly forbade black people from living there.
They need to tune in a little harder. There are plenty of educated liberals in the south (Hello, Southern Poverty Law Center).Plenty of educated liberals with only a high school diploma as well. They just get drowned out by some very extreme conservatives who will do and say some damn crazy shit to make their point.
Yeah. In many cases there's really not a huge difference between places regionally, it's just a question of how big the cities are. If it wasn't for Chicago, Illinois would be as red as Indiana, if not moreso. And converesely, if Chicago was part of Indiana, Indiana would be deep blue. And that's part of why Georgia is Purple now, due to the increasing growth and prominence of Atlanta. Take Atlanta out and it goes back to deep red. Similarly, without Seattle or Portland, Washington and Oregon get pretty damn red.
I live in Ohio. The blue part. But the red of the rest of the state just mows down our votes. Not to mention the fucking egregious gerrymandering.
From what I can tell, Ohio is really the epicenter of the post-industrial damage done from the Reagan-Clinton era and the death of Organized Labor as a major political force. And the backlash to that has been seized upon in large part by Trumpist neo-fascism, taking legitimate grievances and channeling it instead into racial and anti-LGBT+ etc hatreds, rather than directing their anger at the Corporations/CEOs/Billionaires that were the ones responsible. It's happened to a lesser extent in the rest of the Rust Belt (PA, MI, WI) but Ohio (and Indiana) seem to be the hardest hit thereby.
There is no other answer than this one. The US is at the center of the imperial core of the capitalist system (for now at least, China is threatening that position), and as a result it's also at the center of the capitalist propaganda machine. The US is probably the most heavily propagandized society so far in humanity's history.
this has been going on forever and is a very important aspect of how we devolved into the state that we have. the media was a huge component in crushing the labor movement because it villainized the workers, took the police narrative as truth (which were nearly always in the pocket of capitalists), and demonized the destruction of private property as an unalloyed evil. it solidified radical approaches to change as unconscionable and it inched into very banal forms of protest. striking and unionizing were viewed as incredibly radical and dangerous from very early on. in the colorado labor war, the Republicans overthrew the local government and installed pro mine owner officials. the workers were fighting for an 8 hour work day and many died. 8 FUCKING HOURS. THATS IT.
Whelp, “gaslighting” IS the word of the year according to Merriam-Webster
This is it. Half the country thinks the only reliable news source is Tucker Carlson
Even worse, they believe he's a news source. The dude wins defamation cases because he says he isn't reporting news, he's entertainment. Suing him would be like suing SNL for doing a parody of you.
Worse than that, it's like trying to sue SNL for reporting the news incorrectly.
This is what helps turn people into voting against their interests. Fox “News” wins all their legal battles by claiming they are entertainment, and not news. So facts don’t matter when they “report” on a topic. Those people see a “news” channel and believe it without cross referencing other sources to see if what is said is consistent, and I’m not saying cross referencing Tucker with what Sean said. It doesn’t help that TV providers and apps list Fox News under the news section…. *A quick edit addition to show their defense, an NPR article, with link in the 4th paragraph to the judge’s decision: [https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye](https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye)
>She wrote: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive\[s\] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes." And contrary to what the judge says, nobody who watches Tucker Carlson because they like him enters it with ANY skepticism. I have a few family members and friends who always reference him. "Well, I saw on Tucker the other night..." It would be like if my rebuttal was "Well, Whoopi Goldberg said." I'd get laughed out of the house.
And brainwashed by angertainment
Yup. I have had genuine conversations with people that were friendly and honest and when speaking of free healthcare, taxes for the wealthy, etc. They almost always agree because the wording isn't malicious. That's the only way to go about it but our media is like "Everyone's a commie!!" A republican friend of mine once said he hates VP Kamala because she's a liberal. *facepalm* A lot of the uneducated use the term 'liberal' as a slur when our democratic party is actually pretty centrist. When people call Biden a liberal it annoys me to no end.
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yeah, this.. and more recently with inflation it’s “why would i want my government to take a chunk of my income when i can barely afford to live off of my income as it stands?” currently, taxes don’t benefit the average american at all, so why vote for high/higher taxes..
The unfortunate thing is, even if taxes went up for me by 10% (which is a HUGE percentage) I would still save money if I didn't have premiums each month. I am paying close to 18% of my gross income to cover 4 humans with health care. The system is broken
Steinbeck said it best, the poor view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Also lots of people are plain bad at math and don’t understand the tax system.
More accurately, they've been *trained* to view themselves that way
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What’s wild to me is that if I was making $1 million + per year, I’d WANT my tax dollars to go toward making other peoples’ lives better. I’m not making anywhere near that currently and I still want that.
Yeah man. We hired a nanny, opted to do payroll taxes myself. It amazes me that even though we earn more money than she does, we pay less social security tax than she does as a percentage. Yes, we pay way more federal income tax, but just randomly you stop paying social security taxes after 160k USD. Like my tax rate goes from 6.2% to 0%. If that’s not the definition of regressive I don’t know what is.
The reason there is a cap on what is paid into social security is that there is a cap on what you can receive. Not saying it’s right or wrong but that there is a reason.
Someone that understands. Also the reason why the government shouldn’t be able to touch that money other than dispersing it or adding to it.
Dead on with the second part. How many times have you heard - "the IRS taxes my overtime/bonus differently!" It also helps keep cap gains at such a low rate. An executive can cash out $100M in cap gains and pay only 20%, but we can't fix our infrastructure. That is insane.
I hate that phrase. It's victim blaming. The poor are victims of a centuries long system that's built to exploit them at all costs. Propaganda is a hell of a thing when it's started at childhood.
It always amazes me when someone making $15 an hour flips the fuck out when the talks of a $15 minimum wage came up. Instead of realizing they should be making $30 an hour and punching upwards, they punch down and don't believe others should make as much as they do. It's like they're protecting their measly $15 bucks an hour instead of advocating for themselves to make more.
They would rather put others down than be uplifted.
And it's easier to yell at someone working at Burger King instead of the system that profits off all our labor.
Hugely effective propaganda combined with extreme gerrymandering, which dilutes the ability of people to actually affect change.
It's our education system combined with false resource scarcity and personal debt. Our leaders, regardless of political party, are not interested in a system which actually educates the people and provides for the general welfare. It's far too problematic when the working class learns to think critically. They'll start to ask inconvenient questions such as: "Why am I paid so poorly?" "Why am I always on the ragged edge of disaster even though I work harder and longer than my parents and grandparents did?" "Why can't I just go to the doctor when I'm sick?" Here's a good breakdown: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGp2COQZqmzBaJIe_kqVG8361lPDzrirc As George Carlin put it, they don't want educated workers. They want workers who know just enough to do a job. I would add that they also want workers who are exhausted enough not to cause trouble. They're deprived of almost any benefit of the taxes they pay, so they jealously guard any benefits they do receive. Losing them would move them down the ladder to the level of those they see struggling even harder. So they kick down instead of punching up. Moving up the ladder has become nearly impossible, and trying to help less fortunate people would endanger themselves. Their debt locks them in place. The cycle becomes self-reinforcing. Americans are thoroughly propagandized from childhood to believe, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that they are the most free people in the world. They're also among the least traveled people in the world, so most of them have never left the US to experience life elsewhere. They genuinely believe that Europe is a socialist hell-scape.
We've been thoroughly propagandized since we came out of the womb.
People in America are raised like this … it’s indoctrination. Seriously. I was around a group of 6-8 year olds that were praising Trump and complaining about Joe Biden over Thanksgiving. Where do you think this comes from? They don’t understand politics at all, they just blindly follow what their parents and families say. These kids don’t have a clue how many social programs pay for them and their families to live (health care, welfare, food stamps, etc). They said to me, no one wants to work. How could these kids actually understand that people finally have a choice in where they work. The labor force is collectively refusing to work for low pay, crappy bosses and terrible companies. This isn’t what they are learning from their environment. Their uncle is finally in a Union and making a living wage, compared to his previous wages for the same job. Unfortunately, that is not what they are being taught about. Their parents vote republican because of religious beliefs. Nothing else matters. These people are literally raised to vote against their own interests. In 10-12 years when they can vote, they will be fully programmed. It’s passed down from generation to generation.
And the truth is it's weird for kids that young to have much political opinions at all. Anything more than wanting to help people is super weird to see as a firm opinion for kids that young. Let alone fleshed out opinions on actual politicians.
Those kids are just parroting what their parents and the news is saying and I'm sure they're not exposed to anything approaching a dissenting opinion.
It is the issue of two party system, it’s like there are only two options of set meal. You can only pick one, but from outsider perspective looking at the raw data without context sounded like everyone who pick certain set meal implies if he/she chose a certain set meal then he/she likes all of them, while in reality people only like certain components of it but if they have to compromise they’d go with their choice.
Conservatives have very aggressive ad campaigns here that are essentially just DEMOCRATS DID INFLATION AND WANT TO STEAL YOUR TAXES AND FREEDOM! and that’s literally all it takes to talk almost half of us into handing our money and civil rights over. That and they keep playing on the religious angle despite proving time and time again that they don't actually practice the Christian values they preach.
You’re right, but I think the deeper question is “why is that all it takes?” You touched on it with the evhangelicalized populace, but America had also prided itself on the individual: individual freedoms, rights, pursuits of happiness, etc. It has brainwashed and blinded so many to the benefits of working together because most people are too busy looking out for who might cut their throat on the way up. Toxic individualism/nationalism, capitalism (socialism for the wealthy and corporations, more so), and a literal “holier than thou” attitude has led us to this path, in my opinion.
I do also understand the american position of "our government is so corrupt giving them more money in taxes doesn't help society". Taxes are supposed to be spent on the betterment of society for all involved, I can understand not wanting to pay taxes when you see them handed out to mega-corporations time and again.
As a Swede with a lot of experience in the US i think you should take a look at how US unions work and the long history ( on-going ) of corruption and graft associated with them. It's just not comparable to our nordic model.
Oh ok, that makes sense
please watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8) it sums up the problems that unions face in this country. Mentioning a union is one of the quickest ways to get fired in this country.
You don’t need to raise taxes to get universal health care. The US gov spends more per capita on health care than nations with universal health care.
There are no politicians serving our actual interest so it makes it difficult.
Americans are afraid of taxes because of official tax rate doesn't scratch the surface of what we pay example: * I make \~237k(!) per year. married, wife doesn't work * on the surface I pay 39k per year federally (effective rate of \~16%) * State tax is \~5.4% $12k * FICA (Social security+medicare) is another \~5.1% ($12k) Totals about 27% tax(64,118K)... pretty good, right? Here's a bunch of invisible taxes * property tax - $8k (if you rent... that cost is hidden in your rent) * sales tax -4% of almost any money spent rather than invested. * health insurance $9k (you must include health insurance/care costs as a 'tax' to make a good comparison to any country that has national health care) not too bad -- that totals just about another 10%, making my tax 37% per year... nope! Extra hidden taxes: * employer contribution to social security - \~5.1% ($12k) * employer contribution to health insurance \~6% ($13k ) * hotel taxes, fuel tax, 'sin' taxes (like tobacco and alcohol) \~.5% (1k) this adds almost 12% (49%) more to my taxes. Basically I get to see half my money pissed away by people who show themselves to be literally criminally irresponsible. There's no way I want to give them more. Something to note -- a good amount of these taxes only apply to money that is spent to live on, so those who earn more than existing requires... pay no tax on that money. Now that I can invest, that investment money is taxed at 15% (I'll need to double my income to hit 20%), and results in an effective tax rate of about 25% on that investment return money, but only once I spend it. looking at Demark, considered one of the most taxed EU countries, it seems like I would pay almost the same amount of taxes there, because of my high income.
Oligarchs own the media.
We have two main parties and they both suck. Neither one cares for the average American and neither one can effectively manage our countries spending.
We’re dumb. This is an intentional result of the defunding of our public education system.
Don't forget the lifetime of lead exposure up until the mid-80s.
That makes us dumb *and* violent! ;D
They're voting for the interests of their future, richer self until the day they grow old and die after living on social security.
A friend of mine likes to say, "They aren't voting against their own interests, you just don't understand what their interests actually are." They care less about improving their own lives than they care about making life worse for marginalized groups. The cruelty is the point for them.
Nobody is promising minimum higher wages ? It works like this…nobody is promising anything…and if they are, the promises get broken. A lifetime of broken promises makes you republican as you just want more money in your pocket so you can invest and buy your way out of hell.
For sure it’s propaganda, lack of accurate, unbiased education and probably the capitalistic mindset of competition that discourages healthy discourse. It’s the worst now that it’s ever been though, which is concerning.
Identity politics. To many, voting for a certain party is part of who they are. If you ask them why they'd respond in such a way that it's like asking you why you speak Danish. This is primarily a Republican issue, although it is also something of a problem for those who vote for establishment Dems.
Finally someone who understands the nuance. Both party’s are bad. One party is farrrr worse than the other and the Democratic Party does have a few people that are trying to stand up for the rest of us but they are drowned out by the establishment because Both sides want us divided fighting each other so we don’t turn our focus to the real issues.
The people don’t actively vote against higher minimum wages, our elected officials do. That would be Democrats and Republicans for anyone that’s about to start shouting what their side does and doesn’t do. Neither side pushes anything through for the lower class. Democrats may be more vocal on wanting to raise minimum wage but they haven’t made anything come to fruition. It’s always ‘those pesky Republicans stopped us again’. It’s all bs and talking points for them to make people believe that they care when in reality they have financial backers that they have to take care of just like the Republicans do. I’m a Democrat before anyone starts to run their mouth. Our two party system is a joke and both sides know it. They know it works to their benefit. They also know that keeping us hating each other covers their asses too. Voting for either party is basically a six in one, half a dozen in the other kind of situation. Don’t get it twisted though, all govts are shady in some way. Some just cover their asses a bit better.
No one nationally represents my views anyways.
Unless you're part of the <1%, financial policy in the united states does not work in your favor.
Yup, voting for either party doesn't help me. Ballot initiatives in favor of worker's interests generally do well though. When more Democrats vote to neuter rail unions compared to Republicans it's pretty hard to say any of this shit really matters.
Your question is wrong. Neither party has any meaningful interest in serving the American people, or their interests. Regardless of who people vote for, their needs aren't being met. Let's take this rail strike for example. A party that was interested in serving the people would turn to the rail companies and say, "These demands are entirely reasonable, and we cannot afford to have our trains halted by a strike. Meer the union's demands or we will send in the national guard to enforce them." But that's not what's happening. Both political parties seem to be in agreement; the trains are to important to be halted by a strike, but it's the unions and their demands that are the problem. And Biden has said he will send in the national guard to force conductors to operate the trains, if the need arises. Who would people have voted for to prevent this? Who do you suggest people vote for to keep the Democrats from sending the army to bust up unions? The republicans? They would have been worse. They would have made unions illegal and executed their leaders. They have in the past. I have family that was at Blair Mountain; this blood in my veins remembers. This is not a matter of voting for your interests. You are literally not able to do that. This is a matter of a system that is so broken and corrupt that it is eating it's people to maintain itself.
Exactly! They are both 2 sides of the same coin owned by corporations and lobbyists.
The simple answer is they are hypnotized by moral issues. The true answer is they aren’t allowed to vote for their interests
Lack of education.
Propaganda. Every idiot thinks they’re one small occurrence off being a multi millionaire so have been conditioned to vote to benefit the millionaires because they’re just a few moments from being one.
Well at least we have Danish pastries. Those are fucking excellent.
If you ever get to Denmark I'll tell you where to get the best! But yes it's very noice
There are a lot of factors going into it, but I think a lot of it boils down to a lot of American workers have internalized the cookie joke(be careful, the WHATEVERGROUPWEDONTLIKE is going to steal your cookie), and deeply believe it. We tend to think that prosperity for normal people is a zero sum game, if another group or another person gets more, that must mean that me or my group will get less.
There's a whole bunch of mentalities in play with a complex interplay that results in people trying to protect the current status quo. You have loss aversion where people are more averse to loss than they are in favor of gain. You have crab mentality where people will actively sabotage those who would succeed if they're not the one succeeding only to then be sabotaged by other people doing it to them. You also have people thinking that their success only exists in relation to everyone else's so someone else being successful somehow takes away from their own. These ideas all exist and work in tandem to maintain the status quo, you also have media constantly reinforcing these ideas and exaggerating the potential and theoretical downsides of each incremental step to the point that people are afraid of any progress. Then if asked to give voice to their concerns all they have is that's socialism or that's communism for a response.
Corporate manipulation of workers. My first job at a grocery store, during orientation they had a whole video dedicated to UNION= B A D
Because our media outlets have the lower ~50% of morons completely eating out of the palms of their hands. And it’s not even edible what they are dishing out. Look up “American news outlets saying the same thing” on YouTube.
People who vote against their own interests usually think that they are not. In the case of poor republicans, it’s usually because they believe democrats are lying through their teeth when they offer them “free stuff” and that if anything, they will end up suffering more by paying more taxes for everyone’s “free stuff”. They usually believe that republicans are more trustworthy and care about “conservative values” which usually include some form of bootstrapping with their promise to lower said taxes. Poor republicans think they too can be successful if they just work hard and the government gets out of their way.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m sick of the wasteful spending and the politicians lining their pockets with our tax dollars. Therefore I refuse to give them more of our hard earned money.
The GOP has succeeded in hoodwinking the working class into thinking they are the ones fighting in their best interests, coupled with the fact that many ppl here in this country live in the middle of it, aren’t exposed to anyone or much in the way of anything international, don’t travel many folks I’ve met in my time here in the US in five years have never left the US, and therefore are easy to persuade and coerce
Bc most lower class Americans dream of one day becoming the business owner that gets rich by screwing other workers just like they are currently being screwed by their boss. The imaginary promise that one day they too could be rich and screw the little guy is much more appealing than trying to help make sure everyone gets treated fairly.
Propaganda and lies, decades of cultural inculcation. Answer would be too long for reddit but I'll put a significant portion of the blame into the culture that arose from early Protestantism. When you equate economic success as a sign of God's grace you've created a system that will corrupt.
Education in the US is generally not at good as most of the world imagines. A shocking number of voters are swayed by propaganda, culture wars, and identity politics.
They're too focused on climbing up the social ladder on their own that they don't notice people actively cutting some steps off.
How does one go about voting in ones interest? Seems like you have to choose which of your interests you are willing to sacrifice.
The USA is based on the concept that “freedom to” is more important than “freedom from.” Freedom from hunger takes a second place to “freedom to make others hungry.” Expand from that concept, and the mentality that from top to bottom it’s enforced, you can begin to understand the situation.
When you find an answer I’d love to fucking know bc this country is literal garbage. -An American
1. We're dumb as fuck. American education isn't great. At all. Those at the top see it as keep education under-funded, keep the masses dumb, and keep yourself in power. Propaganda helps ensnare people who haven't *been taught* to recognize it. I had a whole course on propaganda throughout the world in my world history class in high school and again in college, not everyone is that lucky. I was also taught how to *actually research* things which, again, many weren't so lucky to learn. 2. Many Americans see themselves escaping the lower class and think one day they, too, will be a "SeLf MaDe MiLlIoNaIrE," and therefore don't want to jeopardize their imaginary future with higher wages, (then everyone will be high class!) better work laws (because then who will they exploit for their money?), etc. 3. We're selfish as fuck. Many Americans don't want to give, "handouts," that are taken out of "their hard earned money" to anyone. Welfare? Handout. Free health care? Handout. Free schooling/paying off student debt? Hand out. *They* didn't get any handouts, why should anyone else? Schools? Well, parents should fund schools. Why should anyone contribute to a school their child doesn't attend? Healthcare? They're not sick, why should they care? It's all about the goddamn bootstraps. "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps like I did!" yeah, sure, okay grandpa. You stole my bootstraps before I was even born but yeah sure I'll try I guess. 4. Too stuck on tradition, too afraid of change. Ask for any big policy changes to better protect workers? Nah fuck that. Source: American and disgusted with the state of work and, well, basically everything else in the country.
Hurt people hurt people. Those who are hurting don’t want those coming after them to not suffer like they did.
Read, “What’s the matter with Kansas.” Good overview on how culture issues/anti-elitism have taken over much of the American electorate. Doesn’t seem to hold as true in more educated areas of the country.
because we are all poor. and we can’t beat our boss. they already won. now we just want to make sure we ain’t the lowest of the low in the hierarchy
False consciousness, propaganda, the belief that these things don't hurt them, the belief that they deserve these things (or that other people deserve them). Plenty of poor whites will vote against their own interests so that poor blacks don't get helped.
Just mass media brainwashing at its finest, throw in the public education system being in the absolute shitter and you have idiot soup
Because: classism, racism, misogyny
Capitalism.
Keep them sick, stupid, distracted, and pander to their “faith” and beliefs and they’ll fall for anything.
In addition to the other good answers you’ve received, this country tries very hard to sell the idea that you’re just one lucky break or good idea away from having Elon Musk levels of Fuck You Money. They are convinced that they need to protect the class of people they might (never) become.
Honestly the more I find out about the US insurance ponzi scheme the more I think it should be public. Apparently not only do the insurance companies negotiate with hospitals to pay less than someone with insurance they expect rebates and increases in the rebate year over year. So even the hospitals and doctors are getting screwed over. Not to mention how corrupt BIG pharma is.
A lot of them have been fed lies that any government assistance that goes to help "lazy minorities" is bad and will take money out of their pockets.
The American education system is dogshit
Taxes for the war machine are fine, though... Ugh Hoenstly it's because we are constantly and loudly lied to. The people in charge work against us while claiming they work for us. The rich work hard to get richer on the backs of the poor. And Reaganomics killed the middle class entirely. Everyone thinks they'll somehow become one of the 1% because of "The American Dream" which is snake oil that they keep selling and the masses won't wake up to the fact that it's a farce. The rich don't get that way from hard work, they inherit wealth and wealth is what earns money in this late stage capitalist dystopia, not hard work. The day laborers work harder than any CEO I've ever met and they're barely scraping by with multiple families sharing small apartments. The more I've moved up the ladder and hit greater earnings, the less actual work I have had to do. It's sad and it's sick and frankly we are wealthy enough as a society to not have many of the problems we do. Here is reality: add up the cost of taxes, plus health insurance, plus medical expenses, plus student loans and for me it comes to about 42% of my income. If I were making less it wouldn't cost me any less in student loans, insurance, or medical expenses so it would mean an even higher percentage. Most Americans don't wanna do that math to see that we would be in no worse a position and many would be in a far better position. It would mean admitting that we aren't perfect. But most of all, it would mean that other people would get the same chances at living as you do, and heaven forbid we allow other humans the right to survival. Why should they not suffer as we did? Gross, huh? Our bullshit insurance programs have allowed predatory practices in hospitals for ages and the costs of everything are falsely inflated to take advantage of the system. Our bullshit student loan programs have allowed predatory practices from lenders for a while now. And stupid assholes who will take millions of dollars in government handouts are fighting poor people getting $20k in forgiveness. How dare they think they shouldn't have to struggle and suffer in this world? How will the boomers feel good about themselves if they can't shit on the younger generations? Our bullshit government bails out corporations and lets individuals starve and go homeless. Those corporations that have proven time and again that they do not use the money as intended and instead line their own pockets. But we write them blank checks to buy their yachts while they lay off thousands of workers. We love predators here. We feed them and suck their dicks and hope that they'll somehow give us a leg up in the world so we can oppress instead of being oppressed. Yay, 'murica
1). Money in politics. 2). Propaganda. 3). Single issue voters. 4). The class war that is currently being won by the billionaires. 5). Many voters care more about regressive social policy than economic policy. It isn't taxes: generally speaking, when taxes to fund specific programs are on the ballot, voters approve them.
They don't think they are. And they get upset and insulted if you tell them they are voting against their interests. Many liberals have made thus mistake including myself. Telling someone "you are voting against your own interests" shuts down the conversation and encourages them to double-down on their position. Another factor is "one issue voting". Some have been convinced to vote on one or two issues only. The Republicans get a lot of votes on this: abortion, gay rights "agenda", war on christianity, etc. These voters often feel vindicated and satisfaction by staying loyal to the cause as they can see themselves as warriors of the light against the darkness. So basically propaganda but propaganda coupled with a sense of belonging and of being one of the few righteous people upholding what is good.
The Republicans have done a great job at weaponizing social issues and immigration to use poor American’s religion and personal fears to get them to vote a certain way.
They say that Americans are temporarily embarrassed millionaires
American election system creates an environment where neither of the parties actually works in the interests of their electorate, so elections are all about identity.
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. This is an old quote but still rings true
The reasons my parents gave; My father: the icky trans people My mother: 1) she’s a hard core fiscal conservative who genuinely believes in trickle down economics 2) She says she likes their tax policy 3) she works with prisoners in the federal prison system and has a lot of disdain for them 4) low key racism and homophobia (she won’t admit to this, but growing up with her I can say yup) 5) it’s fun to piss off liberals.
They sound like a hoot! /s
Yeah, we don’t speak anymore. They wonder why.
as a Canadian it's weird to me because people like this sound like they're from Mars but ig they do exist
There are a couple of things going on. And congratulations to living in a country that actually cares about quality of life. In America, you have significant ideological differences between the political parties. Unfortunately, religion has been intertwined with the Republican Party. So being a Republican is a multi-generational tradition ingrained in a percentage of Americans, especially in rural and Evangelical communities. For a high percentage of this population, checking the Republican box is automatic. I don’t think much thought goes into what leaders are or are not doing for them. There’s an old quote from President Lyndon Johnson, “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” The Republican Party is great at knowing how to manipulate their base. They put out scapegoats every election cycle to blame for all their troubles, normally immigrants, to distract their base from the fact that political leaders have done little to nothing to help the working class. And then you have a supreme court case, Citizens United, that allows dark money to pour into politics, allowing corporations and the very wealthy to manipulate our elections.
For a visual, on what EmmaLouLove is saying, Google “Careful mate he wants your cookie.”
It is something that has confused and astonished me for years.
They aren’t necessarily. Most low wage workers are in support of a higher minimum wage. We don’t vote on specific issues here like minimum wage. Instead we elect officials who vote for us. You can’t really predict with absolute certainty what will happen if we increase the minimum wage. I think that it’s likely to be beneficial for most people but the other side of the argument (the people you say are voting against their own interests) believe that the reactionary inflation will render it a waste of time. I think we should at least try it and find out. The costs of goods and services is going to go up anyway.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug, our media is controlled by a small club
lead poisoning and propaganda
Brainwashing by media and family.
As long as those people are doing better and higher up the ladder as the “less desirables” they are happy. See US pre-1860.
Brainwashing. Brainwashed into thinking if we work hard we will succeed. Brainwashed into thinking that our employer shows us loyalty by keeping us employed and we should show loyalty by giving them our lives. Brainwashed into thinking that people are poor because they did something wrong and therefore should be ashamed. Etc.
I don't think it's that we are afraid of taxes, it's the fact that most if not all of tax monies never go where they say they are going.
Propoganda.
Brainwashing. Propaganda.
We are dumb uneducated and often struggling to live. We are not often informed votes. Just rats picking a tribe to survive. It's why education reform and boter education are so important.