Why do people often vote against their own interests?

midcan5

liberal / progressive
Jun 4, 2007
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An interesting piece that demonstrates the power of propaganda done as story. I had to laugh at the Bush Gore debate dialogue. Too funny. Nonsense is more believable to Americans than facts.

'Drew Westen argues that stories rather than facts convince voters.'


"The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.

Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why there is often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters."

BBC News - Why do people often vote against their own interests?

Democrats are too damn....why they don't take a lesson from the republicans and just pass good legislation is beyond me. Bush passed corporate greed policy and more riches for the rich, and the conservative electorate cheered!

An Aggregation of Nincompoops | Foreign Policy
 
"The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.

Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why there is often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters."

Of course the author doesn't know what he is speaking about. The people of MA have seen first hand what government funded healthcare does...it's damn near bankrupts your state. It's my opinion that the voters there knew that by electing Brown, they would stifle the advance of the current plan. They also know what can happen to our government when one party has a majority in the Congress and a member as president after 6 years of this during the Bush administration. Yes, people voted overwhelmingly for Obama, hoping he would bring a change to Washington. Once more, the people were fooled.

Washing is Washington, and nobody can change that...at least not now.

-TSO
 
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The dems have had trouble because they haven't been passing or trying to pass things in the best interest of all.

They take things that have basic flaws that can be corrected, and instead of just doing the corrections they uinstead start adding things that are neither needed nor wanted and all the while the price tag goes up on the bill, and eventually they have this convoluted and bloated bill that nobody likes and probaly won't address what was originally intended.

Health care is a prime example, instead of getting rid of what causes the problems (insurence companies) they tried all kinds of taxes, rules, regulations and gimmicks and in the end wanted the feds to just pay for everyone's health care.

Instead of simple and straighforward, they always go with complex and earmark laden.
 
An interesting piece that demonstrates the power of propaganda done as story. I had to laugh at the Bush Gore debate dialogue. Too funny. Nonsense is more believable to Americans than facts.

'Drew Westen argues that stories rather than facts convince voters.'


"The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.

Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why there is often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters."
BBC News - Why do people often vote against their own interests?

Democrats are too damn....why they don't take a lesson from the republicans and just pass good legislation is beyond me. Bush passed corporate greed policy and more riches for the rich, and the conservative electorate cheered!

An Aggregation of Nincompoops | Foreign Policy


Personal responsibility. The understanding that it's not someone else's responsibility to take care of us as well as understanding that when you give someone else the job of taking care of you, that you also hand them the decision making power over your life. Some of us also understand that in the grown up world, you can't always have everything that you want. You act as if we should behave as children crying mine, while not concerning ourselves with how things will be paid for. Why do you assume that someone else should work hard to provide for you?
 
Unfortunately, it seems as though the current Democratic leaders have not been able to forget the bad feeling they generated during the Bush administrations run with power of the WH and Congress. It seems like they are in full payback mode. I completely understand, but if they had taken the opportunity to change things around and show that they weren't the same as the Republicans (when they had control), they could have gotten a lot done for the people of the country. Had they done that, it would have been very difficult to unseat the Dems from power.

Instead, it already looks as though their power grab has been caught by the American people who are tired of it, and now they are the bums the people want out of Washington.

I wish one of the parties would learn this lesson and get it right.

-TSO
 
I don't know Midcan, why do you vote against your own interests?

I know why I vote against your policies. Because they aren't in my own interests.
 

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