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The UK has just had an election where many people voted for the party which has been in power for nearly ten years and been an utter disaster.

Because they want change.

Condescension has nothing to do with it. It's empirically observable that a proportion of the electorate doesn't vote in its own best interests.

It's also empirically observable there's an entire industry of media outlets, think-tanks, journalists, bloggers, TV presenters, radio commenters, online commenters, and other influencers which is paid huge sums every year to make sure this doesn't change.

The 2019 election - just like the previous 3, subverted the popular vote by way of First Past the Post. Nationally, the pro-leave side only secured a minority of the vote.

And unfortunately a major problem with proportional representation is there's no one single best way to achieve PR - any campaign to achieve PR would be stymied by splitting the pro-PR faction between STV and IRV, for example.

Plenty of other countries have managed to get PR. So, this is a hypothetical objection only.

> The 2019 election - just like the previous 3, subverted the popular vote by way of First Past the Post. Nationally, the pro-leave side only secured a minority of the vote.

Labour's official position is to negotiate a deal and then hold a final referendum. [1]

So there were three positions in the election (leave, remain, vote again) and leave won the largest share of the popular vote.

1:https://labour.org.uk/page/labour-brexit-plan/

But even so, the largest share were not the majority.

The majority of the country doesn’t want the Tories to negotiate the withdrawal. But that’s what is going to happen.

I don't think proportional representation would fix that.

PR would probably lead to even more parties with each having fewer votes and none ever having a majority.

I think that would a feature at least as much as a bug. If the national government becomes focused on doing the most essential things and is forced to build broad-based, cross-party coalitions to accomplish that, it seems that causes the people to be better represented than if a majority party can cram through their point of view without worrying about trodding over those (temporarily) in the minority.

Isn't the majority of the UK media supporting the party that lost?

No, most of the UK media supports the party that won.

There was a lot of negativity around Corbyn in the newspapers that tend to flip-flop - only the definite left-leaning papers (The Guardian, etc) maintain their support for Labour and the LibDems.

My observation of the BBC's coverage was that while they at least didn't put a positive spin on the Tories, it felt like they were doubling-down on anti-Labour and anti-LibDem negativity. I still don't believe the BBC is in any way biased towards any particular political party, but I feel there's a feedback-loop somewhere in the media system. Once the meme "Corbyn is unelectable" becomes a meme and people don't stop to question it - or it becomes self-referential ("Corbyn is unelectable because the people believe he's unelectable") then we have a problem.

(Disclaimer: I would not actually vote for Corbyn myself - just saying).

Benedict Evans, though he lives in SV, would not have voted for Corbyn if he lived in the UK. Does Benedict Evans not know which political ideology is good for his own self-interest?

How do you explain away people who didn't vote for Corbyn because... they would prefer a non-anti-semitic leader? I have a hunch. You might say, "Well these people were duped. He isn't IN FACT an anti-semite." But, now the goal posts have changed and the discussion moves to whether certain claims are true, not whatever is in someone's best interest.

The thought that people you disagree with are simply fools because they don't know what is in their best self-interest, is not only arrogant, it's patently just not how the world works. Like always, it all comes down to whether your position or their position actually maps to reality. And if you think that you can't be wrong, or that it isn't likely that you get at least some things wrong, then your position is already hosed (not to mention lacks epistemological humility).

> It's empirically observable that a proportion of the electorate doesn't vote in its own best interests.

I'm not sure that's true (that it's empirically observable without bias). The trouble comes from an assumption that by giving up X (that you value only a little) to achieve Y (that you value a lot), that those other people would be better off, when they simply value X a lot more than you do (or Y a lot less). When they consistently vote to prioritize X over Y, you empirically observe some outcomes, apply your own weights to each factor, and conclude they're acting against their own best interests and cite your evidence as empirical proof, ignoring the judgment you applied when determining the weights.

I don't think people exhibiting this bias (unconscious or conscious) are intending to be condescending, but it comes across that way quite often.

Some people prefer to live in a society where the government has minimal power/influence over citizens' daily life (X) while other people prefer to live in a society where government power and influence is strong and consistently exercised to protect the most vulnerable (Y). They're different choices.

No, you’re just upset they didn’t vote for your preferred party.

The American political left would gain immensely and lose exactly nothing by being less condescending. The first line of argument they should abandon is telling people they are voting against their own interests. It’s remarkably insulting, and arrogantly presupposes you know know better what another person’s interests are.

I usually see the argument "you're voting against your own interests" from the free-market, libertarianish side. You may be right that it's often viewed as condescending, but I'm not sure what the alternative would be since the proper pursuit of 'enlightened self-interest' is the whole point of that sort of politics.

The condescending part is that the left views poor people who vote for non-democrats as voting against their self-interest. No one knows what someone’s self-interest is except the person who is voting. Considering the US has only 2 major options on elections, there is a panoply of reasons why someone votes and merely saying “poor people who vote republican are brainwashed idiots” is what grates on people who believe everyone has their own agency regardless of their economic class.

> The condescending part is that the left views poor people who vote for non-democrats as voting against their self-interest.

Is it condescending if it's true, though?

Condescension and correctness are largely orthogonal axes.

>the condescending part is that the left views poor people who vote for non-democrats as voting against their self-interest.

And the right views poor people who vote for Democrats as lazy grifters just looking for a handout, naive fools in the pocket of globalist elites, or else not "real Americans" like themselves.

It isn't only the left or Democrats which have a problem in this regard. The right/Republican end of the spectrum is fueled by its naked contempt for everyone outside their camp.

Naked contempt from one side. Pitying condescension from the other.

It's nice that we have a choice.

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

Unfortunately, my state went for Kang.

You have it wrong. In many cases poor people are better served by voting for lower taxes, cheaper products, maintaining the status quo so there factory job can stay a little longer. It might mean dropping union protections because it makes there state more investable. In the auto sector jobs shifted to southern states without unions.

I didn’t say anything about the issues. What could I be wrong about? All I said is, if you believe anyone from X voting for the other guy means that they are brainwashed, you are delusional. People vote how they want for innumerable reasons. All poor people, gay people, black people, etc. cannot be easily bucketed into voting units. Everyone has their own agency as individuals.

It seems like a losing argument, from whichever direction. Who would not be ashamed to confess, that they took only their own interests into consideration when voting?

You don't have to guess what a lot of people's interests are. They will tell you. In my constituency people were annoyed with our sitting member who is Labor because the train prises increased. They want lower train fares so they voted conservative. So yes, it is actually easy in some cases to say someone voted against their interest.

No. They didn’t vote against their interest. They voted for someone who supposedly would fulfill their interests. Voting against your interests implies you know your interests are wrong.

Would that change a single thing about the way you vote if they did?

Not sure how I vote is relevant to the conversation.

I'm not sure that a better solution is possible in America's current political climate. As I see it there are basically three approaches that a progressive could take in a policy debate:

- Persuasion: I think that you are mistaken as to what is in your best interest, here's why my approach would benefit you more.

- Negotiation: Here's how we can work together to find a solution that meets both of our interests.

- Zero Sum: I recognize that this isn't in your best interest but I don't care because its in my interest.

Due to the power of Fox News and the Republican party's current willingness to ignore facts, I don't think persuasion is possible.

Similarly, the strategy that Fox News and the Republican party have taken of promoting polarization, demonizing the other side, using straw-man arguments, etc.[1] Makes it impossible to have the kind of nuanced debate and compromise that would be necessary for a negotiated solution.

Therefore, it seems like all that is left is a zero sum solution. If the other side won't listen or negotiate then the only option remaining is to implement our policies whether they like them or not.

I'm not saying that's an ideal situation, but it seems to me that its the reality that we find ourselves in.

[1] To be fair, I think that progressives do this to a worrying extent as well. However, I single out the Republican party due to the degree to which they have focused on this strategy and because the fact that many Republicans get all of their news from Fox makes the strategy almost unassailable.

You don’t need to convince republicans, you need to convince moderates who can be persuaded to vote one way or the other in a given election. In the context of a general election, we’re talking about thousands of people in a handful of states. I’m struggling with how the idea of “condescension isn’t persuasive” is finding so much friction here.

The democratic party still hasn't learned from their mistakes of the last election unfortunately.

The condescension isn't really coming from the democratic party. Mostly it's from their allies in the press. The democratic party probably knows what the problem is, but doesn't really know how to deal with it.

The issue that I see is that due to the electoral college and gerrymandering, it can be difficult to win even if you can convince moderates.

The other issue is that many of the issues that progressives are concerned about (e.g. climate change, inequality, gun control) require action by society as a whole. Ideally we would negotiate and find policies that address the priorities of both progressives and conservatives. However, that doesn't currently seem to be possible.

> The issue that I see is that due to the electoral college

Please read the federalist papers.

Care to elaborate?

Because of the electoral college, voices are not wiped out and discounted entirely in this country.

I do not want the equivalent of a yellow vests movement happening here.

Gerrymandering is a huge issue, and it makes it so that moderates don’t have to exist because of safe districts.

The fundamental disagreement about priorities between the parties somehow turned into disagreement about facts in the past decade.

I don't think the electoral college is an effective way to give everyone a voice because it creates a situation where some votes count more than others and it allows a minority of the population to hold the country hostage.

I believe that something like proportionate representation is a better solution. It would still allow minority populations (e.g. rural areas) to band together and get representatives elected that reflect their priorities. However, since the system is no longer winner takes all it promotes finding solutions via negotiation.

This reveals that it is possible to combine the Persuasion and Zero Sum methods that the poster above described: "Once I have persuaded 51% of voters to my view, I no longer need to care about your view."

The idea that moderates or "the center" would win an election just broke Labours back in UK. It's also what broke Clintons campaign in 2016. The left has a big enough voting base to win elections, what it lacks is motivating them to vote. The exact opposite of what happens when you water down your positions in search of "moderates".

Interestingly, right-wing parties understand this quite well. If they loose an election you never hear that they have to convince moderates. Instead they get even more radical.

About that "promoting polarization", it takes two to polarize. You too have the option to cave. You are free to end the polarization at any moment.

Demonizing the other size is impressively the other way. It's happening whenever you see people flinging words like racist, sexist, fascist, and nazi.

Wrong: demonization is obviously one-sided. Because it alone can drive polarization, polarization is not "two-sided".

Moreover, there is a difference in calling spade a spade, and hate speech.

I'm not sure I think "just cave in" is a realistic solution to polarization. That doesn't actually solve anything it just creates more resentment.

In terms of demonization, I think its fair to use words like racist, sexist, and fascist when they are accurate descriptions. Before the Trump administration I was opposed to using those terms because I didn't feel that it was clear that they were accurate. However, I do think they are accurate now.

In my opinion, Nazi is only a reasonable term when the person is actually advocating for Nazism which, other than actual Neo-Nazis, is very rare. The only example I can think of where it might be valid was when Trump said that there were good people on both sides of a Neo-Nazi rally.

Do the American political right not constantly say the same thing? But face less scrutiny when they say it.

Failure to scrutinize your performance when you are losing is a recipe for more losing.

The American political right faces constant scrutiny from left learning news in America. The simple fact is that somehow labor unions seem to be turning against the political left, which means someone messed up big time.

Media in the echo-chambers emphasize the bogeyman/straw man arguments of the other side, ensuring that right-leaning audiences only sees the video and soundbites that reinforce the effete, ivory tower, condescending, detached-from-reality stereotypes. Similarly, the left-leaning population only sees the racism, intolerance, education-bashing, and fact denial. Neither represents more than 5% of the population, but each political leaning believes the stereotype represents 50% of the other side.

I've always thought that the line about people voting against their own interests was just addressing an irrelevant point. Billionaires who support Sanders and Warren are voting against their own interest because they'd get taxed higher, does anyone think that's bad? There's nothing wrong with voting on principle, rather than for what directly benefits you personally.

What approach would you suggest?

What I mean is that any attempt to change policy/society/laws/government innately involves deciding that something would be good for society as a whole and then attempting to get laws put in place that force it to happen.

Therefore, your post doesn't seem to be actionable since it basically boils down to "don't do anything".

I rarely come across such a terse, yet clear, argument why socialism requires force. But it is a false dichotomy, to conclude that the alternative is not to do anything.

Like I said, what's your alternative?

Also I think maybe I didn't explain what I was trying to say clearly. My point is that all political positions, not just socialism, amount to trying to force the laws to reflect how you feel society should operate.

The opposite -- a presumption that people always vote in their own best interests -- is equally condescending because it's an expression that nobody can really believe. It's like everybody applauding and saying "good job" at the kindergarten music recital.

In my view, evidence that people vote against their own interests is the massive industry that exists for the purpose of making that happen.

The respectful middle ground, if there is one, is that how people vote relative to their own interests is a worthy topic and debate, but that the debate might make a few people uncomfortable.

Your logical error is assuming that it’s so obvious what “vot[ing] against [one’s] own interests” means. Maybe a stable free market government with a strong cultural and religious framework is in everyone’s interest, and the “massive industry” exists to convince people of that fact?

This was like the archetype of a partisan argument. You two managed to go through why the sides don't like each other's worldview or the way it's expressed, and then stopped the second it came to discussing any real world issues. And I mean both of you as well, you could've given examples and data about why your system might be in anyone's interest but you didn't and it would've been the perfect time for him to reply with examples and data in favour of his, and neither of you even tried, it just stopped.

It's fucking amazing.

> You two

Who two? Every next comment was written by a different person.

I was mistaken.

Just for the sake of disclosure, I'm as partisan as they come, but...

Partisan arguments tend to go poorly on nice civil web forums, and I'd expect to attract the attention of the moderators if I were to start one.

I’m not trying to convince anybody of that world view. My point is more modest: people can reasonably disagree about what is in the “best interest” of various groups, and therefore there is a difference between “convincing people to vote against their best interest” and “convincing people that a particular world view is in their best interest.”

He's referring to political campaigns. GOTV, agitprop, advertising, r#tf##king, etc.

> religious framework

The founders who wrote the First Amendment clearly disagreed with that.

The opposite is true. It is ahistorical to look at the Constitution as protecting only an individualistic form of religious liberty, merely individual freedom of conscience. At the time of the founding, America was comprised of communities practicing different religions (mainly different forms of Christianity). But within each community, there was a strong, very public religious framework. Indeed, several states had established churches into the 1800s. The First Amendment was designed to protect that status quo. Not to eliminate public religion, but to keep the federal government from erasing those diverse communities by establishing a national church.

The “freedom from religion” reading of the first amendment is, besides being atextual, utterly non-sensical. It reads the Framers to have banned, sub silentio, practices with respect to public religion that were utterly routine at the time the amendment was adopted.

So if some US states established Islam or Judaism as a state religion, you'd be fine with that?

Actually, this is obvious. Voter votes for person who says they will do X. Voter doesn't understand the implications of X. Person gets elected, does X, fallout ensues. Voter now complaining about the consequences. This is a very obvious factual observation of voters voting against their own interests. It's not something up for debate.

But is that what actually happens? Witness the abysmal approval ratings of Congress as a whole while every district continues to approve of and reelect their own representative.

Because people love it when their representative brings home the pork but they hate it when the other guy does it.

It's not possible for people in one district to elect a representative who could individually eliminate all wasteful government programs, but it is possible for them to send in somebody who will at least bring them back a proportionate share of the loot from the heist. Is that not rational behavior absent some coordination mechanism to get all the other districts to stop electing kleptocrats at the same time?

Maybe better would be to vote for someone willing to do that while also pushing for structural change to remove those incentives, but that's assuming there is any candidate running with that position.

> The opposite -- a presumption that people always vote in their own best interests -- is equally condescending because it's an expression that nobody can really believe.

It's hard to believe that every position of a candidate you vote for is in your interests because that's basically never the case.

Suppose I support the elimination of most federal programs and taxation (let the states do it) but I think that a federal carbon tax which is paid out as a dividend to the citizens is a great idea, because it's a national/global issue and pricing externalities is the legitimate purview of government. Who shall I vote for? I have never seen a single candidate proposing to do both of those things.

In a sense the only way for me not to vote against my interests is to stay home. At the same time, there are two candidates on the ballot that are very much not the same as one another. So it's not so much a matter of "voting against your own interests" as choosing which of your interests outweigh the others.

But assuming that anybody who makes a different choice than you is a fool is very condescending.

If you look at the 1997 Labour manifesto, which led to the UK doubling GDP from 97 to and 2007 and the 2019 Labour manifesto they’re very similar.

If you ask people if Labour was good for the economy and would be good for the economy, you’ll largely get a negative response.

Unfortunately it’s easy for people’s opinions to be shaped with zero basis in fact and when this happens it’s easy for them to vote against their own interest.

This has little to do with a condescending left and much more to do with how well the Conservstives play and are supported by the media.

Side point. Just because a government is in power doesn't mean they are responsible for the economy doing well. Often the previous policies take time to take hold more so global trends are driving this. What happened after 2007 the housing crisis.. in part made by government policy spanning decades in part because of foreign influence through global markets.

That’s true but widespread economic opinion is that the austerity policies have resulted in lower growth. Cuts started before 2010 and the effects are visible now. The IMF was critical of the policy as early as 2013 but the conservative government pushed on for idealogical reasons. There’s little reason to continue self harm.

I thought we’ve established that we’re all Keynesians now.

Unless the harm isn't harm but is rather the fabled pain without which comes no gain.

If you look at the 1997 Labour manifesto, which led to the UK doubling GDP from 97 to and 2007 and the 2019 Labour manifesto they’re very similar

The bits about nationalising everything were certainly very different so I don’t think this claim holds up to scrutiny.

I also find it interesting that you stop at 2007. What happened in 2008 that might call into doubt Labour’s management of the economy?

You're blaming Labour for an international financial crisis?

The financial crisis manifested itself in the UK wholly due to Gordon Brown’s mismanagement of the economy yes. A housing bubble and promising the end of boom and bust. Having sold off the gold reserves at a rock bottom price already.

Labour would like their voters to forget it was them who bailed out the banks too.

> What happened in 2008 that might call into doubt Labour’s management of the economy?

The blowup of Lehman Brothers (US investment bank), ABN Ambro (Dutch bank recently acquired by RBS), Northern Rock (overextended British building society), Kaupthing (Iceland), and Anglo-Irish (despite the name, entirely Irish)? Yes, I'm sure that's all the fault of the Labour government.

they don’t want someone like you deciding what’s good for them and forcing it down their throats

But they're happy with other people deciding what's good for them; people who've decided that what's good for them is to be poorer and sicker?

If they could be tricked into becoming richer and healthier, without realising they're doing it by voting for commie socialism or whatever scare label is in vogue, is that wrong? Is there some morality there, like life is an art project.

Seriously; is that wrong? Is it more wrong to tell people what will make them richer and healthier, or to let them be poorer and sicker?

I would make the same quoted statement, but mainly because of misinformation.

I do NOT think people understand what their parties are telling them because both sides lie dramatically.

Democrats do not present realistic plans with costs on their social programs, and Republican media and politicians typically say the exact opposite of what the real plan is. I used to love their smaller government push until they touted cutting public services to save 40 million as a huge victory for the budget while giving Lockheed et. al. A billion dollar contracts... So smaller government, sure, but NOT balancing a budget as it was claiming to try for.

So if you subscribe to partizan political sources, both parties only feed you information that support their party line, and the facts are elsewhere, if they are even available. Presidents keep breaking all promises they make on the trail.

Or they voted one way for a long time, and things got worse, so now they vote a different way.

Judgement of one's long term personal interests is dictated by whose projection of the future you believe. To many, the future trend seems obvious and it seems inconceivable that people would vote against your estimation of what the future will be. A little humility and open-mindedness would go a long way towards bridging the gap.

There's another reason people appear to vote against their best interests: the opportunity to hurt those they dislike or resent.

That motivation can be especially strong when the party that you thought represented your economic interests turned out not to do that as much as you'd have liked.

I feel like you're referring to the seam of high individualism in American culture. imho, that's the lie. And if we don't come to see that, it might be our collective undoing.

There's a reason our highest form of punishment is to isolate. It's not our functional unit of existing. To truly isolate us from others is to punish us perhaps worse than death. So what makes people think the individual should be our highest functional unit of decision-making after millions of years evolving otherwise?

This is something I wonder if western thought deserves to lose its crown over, if it can't course correct.

Disclosure: civic technologist, community organizer, biochemist

The reason we rest decision-making power in the individual is that it's democratizing. A community is not inherently a hierarchy. People can work together and achieve common goals without vesting ultimate power a Supreme Leader. It just means that you have to convince people that what you want the group to do is good, instead of ordering it by fiat.

And if some people want to split off and do something different, diversity is a good thing too.

> The reason we rest decision-making power in the individual is that it's democratizing.

I've studied in democratic reform, and work in civic tech space. There's a book called _Democracy for Realists_ which I highly recommend. It's a wonderful book, but it eviscerates most of what we understand colloquially about democracy. (Or at least did for me)

You are walking around a piece of democracy that is entrenched in "folk democratic theory" -- things people talk about as being the basis of effective democracy. But in democratic theory, folk democracy appears to have much evidence against it, and very few serious academics advocate for it as an explanatory theory. It's telling is part of the glue perhaps, because systems must appear simple and understandable to its participants, or else it can be destabilized too easily :) the works for electoral systems too -- people need to feel like they understand it in order to trust it's outcomes, nevermind if first-past-the-post is truly best.

The individual is very flawed, and democracy might work despite it's individual nature, not because of it. Political parties and identity groups outside the original structure of democracy perhaps stabilize a system that puts decision-making power into a very ineffective unit. (The individual)

Anyhow, it's been awhile since I worked deeply on this stuff (and not as an academic myself), and I might be misspeaking some parts that an academic could correct me on, but I'm sure the general thrust of the above is true :)