Why do people continually vote against their material interests and what can be done about it?

Why do people continually vote against their material interests and what can be done about it?

They are idiots.

Because they see themselves as temporarily embarrassed members of the ruling class and vote as if they already are ruling class.

because they've been convinced that commies
are all unemployed stalin worshipping university students

which is true

we need a better image fuck

Isn't that just proof communism will never work? Communes are literally based on voting and people will always vote for Caesars, Kims, and Stalins.

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Maybe, but if power is spread widely enough, what damage could a Stalin do? Who's he going to kill if he gets voted into power in 1 factory?

When people ask this question, they are unconsciously endorsing the rational agent narrative that props up neoclassical economics. Which means that the same critiques that are leveled at them also apply to you. This is not even getting into the fact that by declaring yourself as the arbiter of what is and isn't a rational interest, you are in fact also endorsing an ideological viewpoint.

Beliefs in ideologies are cognitive shortcuts, a faster alternative to actually processing the information scientifically. Which is a good thing, since if we all did that, then nothing would get done.

Information density increases much more rapidly than individual cognitive capacity, ie "the amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than the energy required to make bullshit." The solution is to break the problem down and delegate separate parts to individuals, ie division of mental labor. Individuals therefore must aggregate into institutions and devise some mechanism for ensuring trust and uniformity of objectives. It is this mental glue that we call "ideology."

To the average, low information voter, there is literally no choice but to trust the institutions that are ideologically aligned to them. Such is the sorry state of the human condition.

most people dont vote

Culture war replaced class war.
Proles in the Midwest and South of the US were fooled into the messaging of fake roughneck individualist conservatives. They no longer see the wealthy ruling elite as the enemy, but the liberals and minorities living in cosmopolitan cities as their enemies.

You can also blame reactionary outlets like Fox News being given any semblance of legitimacy and using that to poison people's minds.

Zizek wrote about this:

"Thomas frank aptly describes this paradox of contemporary populist conservatism in the US: the economic class opposition (poor farmers and blue-collar workers versus lawyers, bankers, and large companies) is transposed or re-coded onto the opposition of honest, hard-working Christian Americans versus the decadent liberals who drink lattes and drive foreign cars, advocate abortion and homosexuality, and mock patriotic sacrifice and simple "provincial" ways of life, and so forth. The enemy is thus perceived as the "liberal" elite who, through federal state intervention - from school-busing to legislating that Darwinian theory and perverted sexual practises be taught in class - want to undermine the authentic American way. The conservatives' main economic demand is therefore to get rid of the strong state which taxes the population to finance its regulatory interventions; their minimal economic program is thus: "fewer taxes, fewer regulations." From the standard perspective of the enlightened and rational pursuit of self-interest, the inconsistency of this ideological stance is obvious: the populist conservatives are literally voting themselves into economic ruin. Less taxation and deregulation means more freedom for the big companies who are driving impoverished farmers out of business; less state intervention means less federal help for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Although the "ruling class" disagrees with the populists' moral agenda, it tolerates the "moral war" as a means of keeping the lower classes in check, that is, it enables the latter to articulate their fury without disturbing the economic status quo. What this means is that he culture war is a class war in displaced mode - pace those who claim that we live in a post-class society … This, however, only makes the enigma even more impenetrable: how is this displacement possible? "Stupidity" and "ideological manipulation" are not adequate answers; that is to say, it is clearly not good enough to claim that the primitive lower classes have been so brainwashed by the ideological apparatus that hey are not or are no longer able to identify their true interests. If nothing else, one should recall how, decades ago, the same state of Kansas identified in Frank's book as a conservative stronghold was once a hotbed of progressive populism in the US - and people have certainly not been getting more stupid over the last few decades. Proof of the material force of ideology abounds in the European elections of June 2009, voters massively supported neoconservative-liberal politics - the very politics that brought about the ongoing crisis. Indeed, who needs direct repression when once can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse."

Based Zizek

Are you implying that any of the choices at the ballot box are within their material interests?

How about reactionary outlets like CNN and MSNBC that demonize these midwestern workers 24/7? Why wouldn't these people vote against the urban liberals who have nothing but disdain for them and openly call for their exclusion from any sort of political or social power.

Literally just one sentence: The material conditions aren't dire enough.

Based Zizek

I never watch these networks and the only pundits from those networks that I see say disparaging things about midwesterners and southerners are trash like Joy Ann Reid and Rachel Maddow. I haven't seen it from CNN folks.
Either way, they aren't voting against media class liberals when they vote for the GOP. If anything, folks like Reid and Maddow profit out of ratings boosts their seeing now in a GOP controlled government and their bottom line will be more profitable with conservative policies.

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They support ideologies blindly, they believe God will punish them if they don't think or act a certain way, and in general many people are controlled through some sort of threat of punishment for not going along, even if it harms them to do so.

Because they feel that it is important for the government to ensure that religion plays an important role in public life (see: American single-issue abortion voters, people who vote for Islamic governments, etc.) or want the government to carry out ethnic hygiene practices (see: Trump voters).

It's especially ironic since they're basically voting to hurt themselves.

The cosmopolitan cities weld too much power to ever be threatened by Republican garbage, so it's the vulnerable rural areas that will feel the "loving hand" of the GOP's policies.

They have a choice between liberals who will call them racists trash and fuck them over or conservatives who will fuck them over faster but at least will pretend to respect them.

Because bourgeois democracy means choosing between someone that will fuck you with lube and someone that will fuck you without

Not the person you replied to, but while I wholeheartedly agree that Fox News, CNN and MSNBC are all trash propaganda machines I do think it is necessary to remind people that they are all owned by 1% elites, staffed largely by 1% elites and cater to the interests of 1% elites. They are machines of class warfare that are effective because they spew identity politics and other divisive 'cultural' bullshit to obscure the reality of who our collective enemy is. Mainstream media is a smokescreen, a divide and conquer private PR department for powerful people and industries to hide behind - the labels they use to differentiate themselves are largely irrelevant.

I don't think I'd hate her as much if the bitch had at least won, but to sabotage the entire political process, cheat Bernie and everyone, all the graft and crooked schemes, to go through all that and still fucking lose

First in line for the fucking guillotine. On her back. The cunt.

I can 100% sympathize with the rage you feel, however, my hatred for the cheating, lying cunt is tempered by my fear that if Shillary had won the election the right-wing hate machine would have continued to gain grassroots power. Almost everyone in the country already hates her guts, and that wouldn't have likely gotten any better after she was elected and forced to try to govern over a congress that is about as vitriolic towards her as it was to Obama, all while America continues to decline.

Instead, the right must now own Trump, who is already pretty detestable to a lot of people, while uninhibited in their pillaging of the American populace. We know things aren't going to get better for the US, and now there is only one party at which to level the blame.

Maybe that's just an unjustified internal hope of mine, but I think that Sanders doing so well against such an overwhelming force only to be cheated out of it could, in the end, rally those of us who likewise feel cheated by a system which is clearly designed to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor - and right now there's only one party to blame for how shit things are. Now is truly the time to re-invent the political dichotomy in America. Too bad the democrats would rather keep taking corporate bribes than change the country for the betterment of the working class.

Yeah, those are some really good points.

Who control the propaganda machine?
Who control the education?

It's very easy to fool people into doing pretty much anything you want if you have the right tools.

Voting dem or Republican is in no one's interest on the national level

What about showing the middle finger to both the Dems and the Reps and voting for a third party en mass?

why don't we just have no government.

Just a wild guess, it's the ideology of smug liberalism and idpol among the left

They don't, really.

Most poor people don't vote at all.

the "trailer trash trump supporter" narrative is totally bogus, all data suggests he was elected by bougie suburban cornbabies like all other republicans

wew nice post lad

Trump has been her good friend since the 90s. She's probably running his administration from the shadows.

voting in america is essentially a cold Nazi masturbation fantasy. take a look at the south. Because the southern states have the highest amounts of blacks, up to 90 percent of whites votes republican just because they dont want to give blacks more money to keep breeding and commiting crime.

if you look at some of the whitest states in america, such as maine and vermont, you will see that they often are open to having larger social safety nets because they live in homogenous communities.

basically diversity has created a situation where most americans, white black or whatever simply vote along racial lines. republicans are the white party, democrats are the everyone else party.

it didnt used to be this way. whites used to actually debate political issues between the two parties instead of just being forced to vote for the party not advocating for their complete replacement.

lol is that the same comic as this

Set up a new lefty party that doesnt support immigration.
So people at least have an option to vote for which isnt against their material interests.

not a lot has changed aside from the current wave of cheap workforce being browny