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Comment by headShrinker | Hacker News Reader

An equally good question is why to poor people vote republican? Because they want to belong. And through financial osmosis people who vote republican become rich, right? That is the thinking anyway.

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why to poor people vote republican? Because they want to belong. And through financial osmosis people who vote republican become rich, right? That is the thinking anyway.

This is needlessly insulting tripe. Poor people vote Republican because they believe in the platform that the Republican party states they support as they understand it.

Just like the reason people vote for the Democratic party.

It's all based on a mix of imperfect understanding of imperfect honesty.

You have an interesting profile as well:

HN has become a very negative site as of recent. I see no place for me to contribute here. From now on I will not be posting or submitting

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck

And for at least 1.7 million people last year, they were?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101099732

And of course if you look at the economic performance of the US under R administrations, vs D administrations, the Rs win by a hundred miles.

Unless you actually look at economic performance. [1]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-25/democratic-presiden... [2]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/economy-ha...

As the /s was meant to indicate. :)

(Thanks for the links).

Is Steinbeck still right about that?

And the whole "it has never worked anywhere else" thing. That might factor into it.

I don't generally support socialism, but your statement is completely wrong. What about Scandinavia and Germany? What about worker's rights? The US itself has plenty of measures which were deemed socialist years ago[1] but are now so common that we take them for granted.

[1] Note that socialism designates a vast array of different ideologies and its meaning is continually evolving. It certainly did not mean the same thing in Steinbeck's time as it does today.

Edit: grammar

I consider myself poor, and although I vote for a third-party I do vote against programs that would help me financially. I do so because I consider them unfair to others and poor government, so on principle, I vote against my own financial interests at times.

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” -- John Steinbeck

Although I do not actually support socialism, I think this quote is one interesting take (of many) on the problem you've outlined.

Edit: looks like someone beat me to it by one minute.

Wait, where did you read that poor people vote republican? I would've guessed otherwise.

I don't know the statistics off hand but I remember reading that there were poor counties in the US in which Romney did not receive a single vote. So yea I'm not sure what context OP is referring to.

The gist of it is the "religious right" got in bed with all the big money/exploit-the-world old white men.

Then, messaging to voters becomes "I LOVE GOD!" instead of "All your money flows up to me." The "poor people vote republican" line of thought follows from people believing poorer/more-religious people vote only on religion above all else without regard for how much their representatives also want to exploit/maim/kill/cancer them.

Recent evidence doesn't entirely support that conclusion, but it makes for a convenient story.

What we end up with is the representatives not keeping up to date with reality. The reps stay "god god god religion god god jesus" while the world drifted more to "Uh, actually everything is pretty okay. Just stay out of our way." You can see that effect in southern "we hate all the gays" politicians while most real people don't want oppression/repression/persecution of them at all.

But—to get your way—all you have to do is scaretivate (scare+motivate) a small vocal base into voting for your overton candidate. (See: 2004 GWB election where "kill the gays" was set as a constitutional amendment in a dozen states along with "Vote for GWB!" — Drag the crazies out to vote for their delusional pet social bigot issue while also catapulting your candidate pet back to victory (well, victory against a droning sedated sloth, but victory nonetheless))

Poor in urban areas = Democrat

Poor in rural areas = Republican

Poor in urban areas = Black

Poor in rural areas = White

"Lower-income and less educated whites also have shifted substantially toward the Republican Party since 2008. The GOP has largely erased the wide lead Democrats had among white voters with family incomes less than $30,000." [0]

Although the graphs on [1] tell a slightly different story.

[0] - http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-... [1] - http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/09/26/161841771/how-inco...

White people only make up 72% of the population. You can't dismiss the other 28%.

I know! Why can't poor people just vote themselves more and more unaffordable benefits like in Greece. What could possibly go wrong?

Best selling books have been written about it. [1]http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-Amer...

...why to [sic] poor people vote republican?

Why does anyone vote republican, or democrat? Because those are the two choices on the ballot.

You need to keep reading the ballot! There are usually at least one "alternative" candidate who doesn't represent the Democrats or Republicans.

I didn't even agree with the Libertarian candidate on many things but I voted for them to satisfy my right and responsibility to vote while not endorsing the Single Party we have here in the US.

We are watching you.

Many people vote republican not because of their fiscal policies, but because of the social ones like abortion.

Abortion, Homosexual Marriage, these are manufactured controversy. They were created so that that poor masses can be convinced to vote for them.

How are they "manufactured controversy?" Do you think that there is a secret universal agreement on these issues? Seems unlikely.

Among the Religious Right in the US, it's very largely manufactured. Meaning: groups of people very deliberately chose two key issues (abortion and gay marriage) and created opposition movements where there weren't any before. A number of authors trace this, but you could try Randall Balmer for starters.

It's a mostly tacit agreement between a relatively small group of career rabble rousers and carpet-bagging politicians, building 'issues' to root their respective industries in.

If I had to put myself in a poor Republican voter's shoes, maybe I vote Republican because I'm too proud to admit that I need help lifting myself out of the shithole of my life. Maybe I don't want to be pandered too by the Democrats because I am working my ass off and I can't seem to catch a break. Maybe I don't want to be where I am today, but I don't know how to be somewhere else tommorrow.

I've known a lot of people in bad situations and most of them where hard working men and women that take nothing for granted.

The ones that do...well when you reduce the budget of a welfare system to the point where every dollar HAS to go to those in need, you don't leave a whole lot to oversight and investigation of fraud.

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