Why Poor America Votes Against Its Own Interests

[martins name]

After WW2 Europe was in ruins, and America stood as the only manufacturing powerhouse in the world. Middle-class blue-collar workers could support a family with a single wage. As Europe rebuilt and the rest of the world, like China, industrialized, American manufacturing fell in relative value. America has remained the strongest economy in the world by pivoting to white-collar work. Rural communities that used to thrive off blue-collar work have fallen into despair. "Make America great again" resonates with these rural places because they are right to be nostalgic for when they thrived in the 50ies and 60ies. 

Leo says poor Americans vote against their own interest because of Spiral Dynamics stage blue. But stage blue is not inherently hyper-neoliberal. This is an American phenomenon of blue and orange being so closely married. There is plenty of stage blue leftism around the world, think communists or union workers. Poor republicans think that the capitalism and social values that seemed to work in the past can work again. But it won't work. Poor republicans need to understand that there is no returning to the 50ies-60ies, but that a new greatness based on investing in people can be created. 

[Husseinisdoingfine]

This criminally underrated blog post from Leo explains it all:

https://www.actualized.org/insights/why-bernie-sanders-lost

[SOUL]

Read the book 'Manufacturing Consent' by Noam Chomsky and it explains why this and so many other things about these dynamics. To be fair in full disclosure I never read it because I actually see it so clearly anyway it's as if I could have written that book myself. It still is a great read from what I'm told.

[martins name]

@Husseinisdoingfine I watched the video when it came out. I agree with Leo that when people are choosing between candidates of two different colors, people will ~80% vote on SD color. But what is being missed is that before the colors compete against one another, there are party nominations. During those nominations, a candidate with a policy platform that doesn't match the electorate will lose. So the content of the different colors are determined by people's wishes. 

Stage blue is conservative, but what is being conserved differs a lot between cultures. This is why different stage blue cultures don't get along while different orange and green cultures do. The content of stage blue has the most variety of all stages.

It is possible to make a stage blue argument for leftist policies. In a different universe, republicans could be for unions and for investing in the American people. Many stage blue cultures around the world are leftist.

The question is, why is the content of the American stage blue so perversely liked with toxic stage Orange? This isn't a universal feature of blue. It's an American phenomenon. Leo's analysis lacks the answer to this question.


@SOUL I understand the idea of manufacturing consent. I think American culture is shaped 80% of its history and 20% of brainwashing. Every big movement in American culture has a clear historical cause:
American imperialism/interventionism was caused by the success of WW2 interventions.
Then the anti-war movement was caused by the Iraq war.
Poor people want to make America great again because they used to be part of a middle class that actually was great.
Populism is rising because elites are corrupt.
and so on and so on

Edited June 23 by martins name

[SOUL]

@martins name If your list of 'causes' and 'becauses' is any indication, you actually don't understand as much as you think you do. Even the history you claim is 80% shaping American psyche is really from 80% brainwashing of it, not actually what it is.

[Leo Gura]

Voters do not have a causal understanding of how economics or government works. They just vote instinctively based on vibes. The vibe is: don't vote for godless weak gay communist liberals who want to turn your children into trans.

You are thinking about things far too logically. That's not how people get their political views. They don't sit down in an armchair and think through which political party would get them a bigger paycheck. It works the other way around. Whichever party has the right cultural vibes must also be the party that increases their paycheck. It can't be that the godless gay communists will give me a bigger paycheck. That makes no sense.

Edited June 24 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

It's also because of some other reasons that were discussed in this thread I made a while ago:

 

[Frylock]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Voters do not have a causal understanding of how economics or government works. They just vote instinctively based on vibes. The vibe is: don't vote for godless weak gay communist liberals who want to turn your children into trans.

You are thinking about things far too logically. That's not how people get their political views. They don't sit down in an armchair and think through which political party would get them a bigger paycheck. It works the other way around. Whichever party has the right cultural vibes must also be the party that increases their paycheck. It can't be that the godless gay communists will give me a bigger paycheck. That makes no sense.

On the whole, most people are emotional, irrational little chimps, then. It's weird being more developed than most Americans, but honestly not that much of an achievement, I suppose.

[mats-2]

3 of 4 Americans think, Europe is a country