Every day I marvel at how poor and middle class Republicans vote against their self-interests

[booley]

110. It's not priorities

It's not even about facts or education. Even when both liberals and cons acknowledge the same facts they often come up with very different interpretations. (and Liberals are no less capable of being misinformed then anyone else) While going to college can make someone more Liberal, there are many highly educated Conservatives. (Indeed that's the point of conservative colleges.. to ensure that students remain conservative)

This is about values. I mention "priorities" because we share these values but we place different importances and interpretations on them.

For instance the idea that morality is rewarded. So doing good should see one prosper and being bad should consequently be punished. We all believe this to some extent. Post a story about how someone was punished for doing the right thing or did wrong but got away with it, and there would be responses filled with moral outrage. And this occurs on both sides.

But conservatives place such a high regard for this value that they believe that this means the rich, who are clearly prosperous, must also be moral. And the poor, who are clearly struggling, must be immoral. While individual exceptions may occur, in the conservative mind the over all truth of this remains.

Haven't you heard the term punishing the successful" when it comes to taxes for instance? I am sure you have. This isn't just propaganda. It's a meme to reinforce this interpretation that morality means material success. You talk about the selfish hurting the poor and helpless. But to a conservative, it's the morally just not being taken advantage of by the greedy and lazy who seek to enrich themselves on another's work.

Yes you disagree that is what is actually happening. As do I. But we don't share the conservative world view. And no I don't think "everyone's priorities must be considered good and respected". But then I never claimed that in my argument so lets put that straw man aside.

My point here is that stereotyping cons as "dumb" or "anti-intellectual" may sound good and may even be right to an extent, it does nothing to explain WHY they think like they do, much less how to counter it. Indeed, it feeds into and strengthens their resolve to believe what they do.

While Liberals have been making fun of Conservatives, Conservatives have been working for decades to make people see things their way. If we want to change that, we need to first understand what's going on.