Reich: A Tale of Three States: California, Kansas, and Florida

[Martin Eden]

24. Many people who vote for R's are simply misinformed

I work with a very smart young lady (mid 30's) who is an excellent industrial engineer with an outstanding work ethic. She's a good person who is not selfish or mean to others. She votes R because she has bought into the perception that Dems are all about giving free handouts to people who are capable of working but lack the work ethic to make the necessary effort to support and better themselves. She's a believer is "small government" and pointed to Solyndra as an example of government overreach.

Like the vast majority of people she was never exposed to the information (until I told her) that the program related to Solyndra has a higher success rate than the average for private business ventures and the program has yielded a net profit for taxpayers. Most people lead very busy lives and don't bother delving into alternate sources of information outside the corporate media. She sees the national deficit as primarily the result of the welfare state and inherent government inefficiency than astronomical military spending and starving the government of funds by letting the uber-wealthy and highly profitable corporations find loopholes & tax shelters to avoid paying their fair share to support the sysytem that allowed them to accumulate such wealth.

Don't give up in friends & family who have been manipulated into voting against btheir own best interests. We can never defeat the Republican Party if we alienate them and push them farther away.