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Comment by svantana | Hacker News Reader

It is only natural that the people in possession of resources are reluctant to share them; that is also the case in most countries, in my experience. The weird thing about the U.S. is that so many below-median-income folks are right-wing -- the very ones that would benefit from increased wealth distribution. I guess part of the explanation comes from the mirage that is The American Dream. In some sense a lot of us Top 20 percenters are Dream Sellers -- if you just buy the right shoes, food, anything, you too will be successful and get social status. (Yes I am one of those Scandinavian socialists)

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There is a quote attributed to John Steinbeck (but see Wikipedia, because it doesn't appear to have a citeable source)

>Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Regardless of who said it, it captures the American attitude held by some "You may some day be flush, why would you vote against your future self and raise taxes on him?"

This is a rather simplistic analysis of why poor people often vote republican in the USA.

Ironically, I just visited Gothenburg in "socialist Sweden", and it was the most racially/poverty segregated city I have ever been to in the modern world.

To be fair, Sweden has only recently started becoming multicultural, so they might need some time to learn how to handle it fairly.

Generations, or longer, just like everyone else.

Many members of the American working class have strong work ethics and don't want government handouts. They don't necessarily envy the rich but they hate freeloaders.

> I guess part of the explanation comes from the mirage that is The American Dream

No, it's much simpler than that: blacks, gays, guns, abortion.

I would beg you to look for a much more nuanced understanding of the people whom you oppose politically.

Attempting to reduce all the of the great Conservative/Libertarian arguments for not wanting top-down tyrannical centralized high-tax government that takes away liberty to instead being single-mindedly rooted in racism, homophobia, etc. may make you feel better that your opponents are irrational emotionally-driven zealots -- but you've so missed the mark on comprehending the people who oppose you that you're only helping to further the enormous divide of understanding that we have in politics today.

I would beg you to try to understand that the whole 'Conservative/Democrat' divide as far as I can see from some distance is utterly ridiculous in the eyes of a good chunk of the world.

If gays/guns/racism and abortion were not hot political buttons in the United States the Republicans would likely never win an election.

Libertarians have to all practical intents and purposes no representation in congress that is able to move the needle so can be safely ignored. It's just the rich making themselves richer, one group going about that slightly more nuanced than the other.

And if the libertarians would be represented in congress in numbers that could move the needle the rich would be making themselves richer even quicker.

utterly ridiculous in the eyes of a good chunk of the world

I normally find that people outside of the US are not so nearly informed as they think they are about the driving dynamics of US politics, especially when it comes to things like "why do people vote the way they do".

For the most part, people outside of the US start with their non-American cultural biases which makes them extraordinarily susceptible to what are also the loudest voices: Hollywood, the news media, and the most outrageous politicians - while being almost completely ignorant of the undercurrents that actually drive dinner table conversations.

Although libertarians aren't very represented, if you don't see the heavy strain of libertarianism in modern Conservatism - I'd say that's another indicator that you don't know much about the politics of the people you're overly simplifying.

> I normally find that people outside of the US are not so nearly informed as they think they are about the driving dynamics of US politics, especially when it comes to things like "why do people vote the way they do".

I'd be more than happy to bet that they are typically a lot better informed than you'd guess and that the reverse (Americans being informed about the dynamics of politics in other countries) would be dramatic.

Keep in mind that whatever the US does the world is affected so American presidential and mid-term elections are followed the world over by people who have absolutely no way to influence (well, that's the theory at least) but who will very much be on the receiving side of whatever the outcome is.

I didn't claim that Americans understand politics in other countries that well at all.

I'd be more than happy to bet that they are typically a lot better informed than you'd guess

And yet every person I've talked to who has an outside-looking-in view of US politics was positively stunned that Trump won the election. Their left-leaning news sources and celebrities absolutely convinced them that there was no way that America would elect Trump. Once again, they didn't understand American politics as well as they thought they did. Rather than admitting their ignorance, they tend to rationalize.

It's most probably a mix of both.

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