Why People Vote Against Their Own Best Interests

[gab13by13]

I tell people that the #1 thing I got out of college was not to believe everything I see on TV, listen on the radio, or read in print, I now can add, or see on the internet. What I am getting at is logic and critical thinking.

People can be made to believe anything, most people here believe that a fence is a wall. Some very intelligent people go to great lengths to devise propaganda that people will swallow.

Look at the example of what Orson Welles did back in 1938, around Halloween. He did his episode of War of the Worlds on the radio where he described the United States being invaded by Martians, with death rays and the works. Welles even tried to put out disclaimers but once the panic started it was fueled by the media who actually helped inflame the hysteria.

People can be made to believe anything. Today's world of propaganda has gotten so much more sophisticated than back in 1938,

Click on the summary of War of the Worlds that I have provided from Wiki; it is a very interesting short read,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_radio_drama)#Production

Bah humbug I posted the wrong link.

[marble falls]

1. Cause they're suckers for sound byte apeals to their fears with a simple solution. Like Welles ...

... production.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. No voter votes against their own interests. You just have a different idea of what their interests

are.

[Celerity]

6. +1

[leftstreet]

12. +1

[obnoxiousdrunk]

16. +1. Nt

[vercetti2021]

3. They vote against people

They don't give a fucking shit if they end up killing themselves as long as it is to hurt people like myself and other people that they don't like. And by all means if you want to burn your house down so the liberal next door can choke on the smoke. Go for it because the liberal will just move out of the smoke path you'll still be without a home. But they would still consider that a win in their book

[markie]

4. ...

[RAB910]

5. Blame Star Wars

Republicans heard this quote by Yoda and they realized they had their new political strategy.


“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” — Yoda

I never met a right-winger who was truly brave

[Omnipresent]

7. They're brave enough to say and do stupid things on camera.

Followed by impeachments, indictments, and possible prison sentences.

[RAB910]

8. Being too stupid to understand risk and knowing the risk and proceeding anyway are distinctly

different

[Omnipresent]

10. Yep.

[orthoclad]

9. The right wing understands

that people mainly act on emotions, and they act strongest on emotions like fear and rage. This is how they manipulate the public mind.

Ownership of the media by a few corporations has its effect, as well.

[Midnight Writer]

14. Absolutely. When a person is triggered to be afraid and angry, those emotions bypass logic.

And outrage is addictive. Some people find it exciting to be outraged and angry all the time.

[orthoclad]

15. The addiction to strong emotions like rage

is a survival instinct in a promitive environment full of predators and hazards.

It's thus much easier to be hornswoggled to perceive someone who looks or talks differently from you as a threat, than to perceive a truly existential threat like global heating as a proper target of your fear.

The manipulators have access to reams of psyop research. Like Bolton admitted, we've had practice.

[Ocelot II]

11. People vote for what they think their interests are.

Sometimes we misunderstand somebody else's interests. The decision to vote a certain way might seem illogical or emotional, and the voters might have been misled, but those are their interests, or believe they are.

[usonian]

13. We are in an era of personality politics, you might say cult politics.

Since you know when, I have studied cult behavior, and there are aspects of it similar to addictive behavior, co-dependence and even mafia behavior patterns. The key to these is that they are self-destructive. So what's the lure or reward?

From a previous post:
One major thing about cults (and I wrote about this in terms of the Mafia --- some similar behavior patterns there -- ) is that membership is self-defeating. It's just that the cult/Mob sanctions vile behavior. And that's what a lot of people like. They want their base instincts (literally, killing, theft and lechery ) to be sanctioned ... "because it's a war"

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18052138

Joe Pistone, the real-life "Donny Brasco", agent who infiltrated the mob, wrote about "gangster life".

He called it "The Way of the Wiseguy" and it's quite a description of the cult members.

I posted earlier:
https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=354762

The resemblance to mafia behavior is quite stunning.

I read a book by Joe Pistone, the "real life" Donnie Brasco, and two points of wiseguy life are similar to MAGA cult membership.

1. Membership "legitimizes" all kinds of vile behavior.
I had to expose myself to the full sweep of wiseguy wickedness. Violence, greed, manipulation, exploitation-these are the raw impulses that define life as a wiseguy. They walk the same streets as us but by no means are they seeing or feeling the same things.

2. There is no gain, in fact, disadvantage, in being a member,
but the lifestyle and "family membership" are too attractive.
All wiseguys fully expect to either go to jail or get whacked. They have absolutely no delusions that they are going to live long lives

What lifestyle? Ask (real life) Henry HILL from Goodfellas.

Henry begins the film by telling us, “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.”

Trump is what happens when you try to have it both ways.
(From https://www.pastemagazine.com/article/the-mob-movie-goodfellas-tells-us-everything-we-ne )

It "legitimizes" vile behavior, and Trump normalized racism, misogyny, violence, greed, even theft and treason (and more), and they live vicariously through him or a successor, though it would be hard to match the "glamor" of a TV actor.

And they ignore the downside --- that this is all self-defeating ---because their red hat gives them a hall pass at the promised apocalypse.

OR SO THEY ARE TOLD
So, the two key traits that we see (IMO) from the cult, as with most cults, are DENIAL, and PROJECTION.
"Cult Christianity" "sanctions" hate, discrimination and violence, which are anti-Christian.
Just like the mob "sanctions" murder and theft.

"Family values" MAGAT and MAFIA style

[JI7]

17. They aren't voting against their interest. Some people's interest is hating certain groups

[B.See]

22. THIS!

[Silent3]

18. Actually the problem for many is excessive disbelief, not "believ(ing) everything (they) see on TV"

They think they are wisely taking the advice not to believe everything they read, see on TV, etc.

The way they're doing this, however, is reflexively dismissing almost completely the "main stream media", which is far from perfect, but which is not at all the hyper-coordinated liberal disinformation service they believe it is.

And then they fill the information vacuum with right wing propaganda instead, which they do swallow far too uncritically.

These people lack proper critical thinking skills, but they very much believe they have those skills anyway.

[Emile]

19. Your average republican voters votes for one thing only,

to entertain the wealthy.

[Raine]

20. It's not against their best interests

it might be against yours but theirs are different then yours. People are going to vote for or against what's most important to them. Not everyone is the same, priorities vary with individuals.

[betsuni]

21. Radio and newspapers, all they had back then. Now people can take the damn time to Google

or click around on the TV machine or use the telephone machine, use their fucking brains to collect information. "People can be made to believe anything" -- no they can't, not if they have common sense.

They ARE voting for their interests. If you mean economic interests, that's another story. They vote for culture wars.