I can never understand why people vote against their own self-interest

[Pototan]

In the United States, every four years, there is a binary choice for the leader of the country. I always am amazed at how many people vote against themselves. I saw it mostly in labor unions, especially under Reagan. But in 2016, many pro-choice women were among the Trump supporters, or voted for Jill Stein.

This year, Muslims, Arabs and African Americans are peeling away from Biden. Let's get something straight, Joe Biden is the only alternative to Trump. I've seen some polls where Trump receives as high as 20% of African American male voters. Muslims and Arabs, pissed at the President because of Gaza, are demonstrating and withholding their support. Trump and his cult supporters have targeted these two groups.

With that background I thought I would give a little history lesson here at DU. In the election of 1932 and 1933 in Germany, there was a group of Jewish political activists who supported Adolf Hitler. The group was led by a man called Max Naumann,

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Association of German National Jews (German: Verband nationaldeutscher Juden), colloquially known as the Jews for Hitler,[citation needed] was a German Jewish organization during the Weimar Republic and the early years of the Third Reich that eventually came out in support of Adolf Hitler. In 1935, the organization was outlawed, and its founder and leader Max Naumann was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo.[1]


Here's the link to full description:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews

[quaint]

1. I've often voted against my own self-interest in favor of the greater good.

I have voted for more taxes for schools my family doesn't use, roads we never travel, ADU housing rules I hate, and other issues because they are good for my community or nation.

[Pototan]

16. I do the same

but my point is that I certainly wouldn't vote for anyone who targeted me and my demographic for destruction.

[gab13by13]

2. Reagan

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. They don't. You just aren't clear on what their interests are.

[Irish_Dem]

12. Exactly. Greed. Racism. Hatred. Violence.

Cult worship.

[TheKentuckian]

39. I'll buy that for a dollar!

[TwilightZone]

4. That presumes that their self-interests are what we think they are.

People vote in certain ways for myriad reasons. When they vote against what we believe their interests should be, it's often because we don't really understand what their priorities are.

We assume those reasons to be rational, but quite often, they're not. Some have been convinced by decades of right-wing media that any Republican is better than any Democrat, regardless of the circumstances.

There's also a lot of projection involved. Trump is particularly adept at convincing the rubes that every bad thing he's ever done is actually the faults of Democrats. And tens of millions buy into that argument.

There are also a lot of people who are largely apolitical and may not understand (or care) what each party has to offer.

[Kaleva]

6. I agree.

Your comment:

"People vote in certain ways for myriad reasons. When they vote against what we believe their interests should be, it's often because we don't really understand what their priorities are."

[Pototan]

19. Jews for Hitler

When a candidate (or party) proclaims that you, as a group, are a target of their wrath, you should pay attention.

Any Jewish voter in Germany who voted for Hitler because he or she liked his tax policy soon learned the error of their ways.

If black men and Muslims don't realize the danger of a second Trump term, they will soon learn about that error if Trump wins.

[Kaleva]

35. What percentage of Jews in Germany supported Hitler

My guess is that you don't know.

And if you don't know, then why are you using that as an example?

[Pototan]

36. If you read the link, it looks like 6,000

Last edited Thu Feb 22, 2024, 10:06 PM - Edit history (1)

but the point is that there was an organized group of German Jews who worked to elect Hitler.

Please read the link. It contains an historic fact,

[Kaleva]

41. What is the percentage?

6000 out of how many Jews in Germany at that time?

[Pototan]

42. Gallup wasn't around in Germany in 1932

No polling data, sorry.

The point, again, is that some people vote against their own self-interest. And any Jew who voted for Hitler in 1932 would be the most extreme example.

I'm sorry you can't get the point.

[._.]

18. My take

Is that they don't want the benefits in question going to "those" people.

[Kaleva]

5. People assume they know what other's self interest is

[Pototan]

20. I'm going to guess that it safe to assume

that a Hitler victory in 1933 was not in the Jewish self-interest.

[Kaleva]

33. Did Jews in Germany support Hitler?

Did Hitler's accession to power hang on the support he got from Jews?

I'm just guessing but I think the percentage of Brownshirts who were Jews was very, very small.

[Pototan]

37. After the publishing of Mein Kempf, one would be too many

but the article estimates that there was 6,000 members of this organization.

[Happy Hoosier]

7. Lyndon Johnson understood....

Last edited Thu Feb 22, 2024, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

[Ocelot II]

8. They do; at least for what they perceive their self-interest to be.

But that might not be what we think it is or ought to be.

[JI7]

9. People don't vote against their self interest .

For some their self interest is racism, hating gays, women etc .

[JudyM]

13. Craving a sense of moral superiority.

[JustAnotherGen]

10. Art: Michigan Arab Amer Voters Vow to Punish Biden

I'm glad to see this post - because I'm home sick and saw a disturbing segment on MSNBC this morning.

This lead me to search *Abandon Biden* Below is the article.

https://www.barrons.com/news/in-michigan-arab-american-voters-vow-to-punish-biden-97d991d0

One of the 4 panelists on MSNBC asked "why is our Democracy more important than thousands of dead Palestinians?"

See - she doesn't understand my priorities. Big wow - your survived four years of Trump.

My family survived The Middle Passage, 100 years of Jim Crow, the Seminole Wars, The Trail of Tears, Anti Semites in Pittsburgh PA, WW I, World War II . . . shall I go on?

In a Trump Presidency 2.0 my first allegiance is to my extended family. My second allegiance (tied)is to Indigenous communities & Latino Americans.

I will not make a single family member suffer to save the Arab American community in Michigan.

They do NOT know SUFFERING in America, Intergenerational American "Other" Trauma - and that only a handful of minority groups know how to survive a Dystopic America.

They know what they know - but they think they are free. At this point - their inability to see my priorities and KNOWLEDGE of how bad it has been for Black, Indigenous, Japanese and Latino Americans drives my disregard for them.

If they do this - they go first. I will remain silent because that enables me to get my family on vacations to Italy at a pretty fast clip.

They are on their own.

[bif]

11. Here's my theory...

I think poor folks vote for rich, white politicians because they really think they'll be rich someday.

[JustAnotherGen]

14. Also

Last edited Thu Feb 22, 2024, 01:53 PM - Edit history (1)

They don't like us Non white folks.

[Elessar Zappa]

26. Trump's biggest support

came from middle class, blue collar workers, not poor people (although certainly a lot of poor people voted for Trump). Education was a bigger predictor than income of how someone voted in 2020.

[Doc Sportello]

34. Thank you for that last sentence

I'm often amazed at how many here don't know that education was the most salient factor in Presidential voting in the last two cycles.

[dlk]

15. Too many Americans no longer believe in our collective good

It ramped up in the 1980’s with Reagan’s/Republicans “greed is good,” campaigning.

Then, there are those Americans who require someone to hate.

Too many Americans are willing to cut of their nose to spite their face, and Republicans have capitalized on this brilliantly, I’m afraid.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Also

I typed this into the Google Machine:

Are african Americans peeling away from joe biden?

The most recent article was dated December 13, 2023.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/12/12/joe-biden-loses-support-among-black-voters-donald-trump-gains-ground/71889796007/

Then I typed this into the Google Machine:
2024 Democratic South Carolina Primary votes by race

STICKING WITH BIDEN
The voters interviewed were among the most engaged Democrats in the state, taking advantage of early voting opportunities or helping to register and persuade others to get to the polls. Many said they generally supported Biden and would vote for him in the primary and November’s general election, driven by a sense that he was trying to address their concerns.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-black-voters-south-carolina-campaign-primary-f2055da3f50983a2b78941d738fc28ea

My -don't put this on African Americans. At the beginning of the second article you will note the concerns of South Carolina voters for the failure of the voting rights act.

The Arab American population in Michigan have no idea what it means to not be able to vote. They've had it easy. That's why im.saying - you don't care about MY priorities - I don't care about yours.

[unitedwethrive]

21. This is the question the repubs must have asked themselves many years ago,

when they began being a party of division.

They knew that it would take something perceived as a greater threat to make people prioritize it over their own economic and social interests. So, they started to create boogie men (or concepts supported by the "liberal boogie men" ). Immigrants, abortion, separation of church and state, are among the things coming to ruin America, in their minds. They are even convinced that social programs are bad...I'm not sure if it's because social sounds like socialism and they equate that with fascism or communism - or that they don't want to help the less fortunate, because maintaining the current class structure keeps them a rung or two above the bottom.

The ability of politicians to convince people of these fabricated generalizations stems, in my mind, from a poor educational system. A strong education should include the ability to reason and to be aware of enough history to know the pitfalls of previous societies. The repubs have long sought to decrease public educational funding and to have strong restrictions on educational content.

[jalan48]

22. Ignorance.

[Yavin4]

23. Simple. They think that they ARE voting in their self interest.

And when the inevitable dire fallout happens, they cannot reconcile their decisions. A lot of women didn't vote for Hillary, and when the SCOTUS overturned Roe, they had to scramble to justify their decision.

[Caliman73]

25. That is because people don't just have one set of "interests".

We think that poor people would vote for candidates that would help them to gain more economically, but the reality is that people's identities and "interests" are varied and complicated.

Those poor people might identify more with Christianity than with the idea of climbing the social ladder. They may think that their lot in life is to be poor because the is how God intended it, but they cannot stand the idea that people don't pray in school or can't say "Merry Christmas". That would motivate them to align themselves with a candidate or party that espouses those ideas of promoting Christianity as the primary religion.

Some people vote "against" candidates to express their frustration. For the same reason that people ask, "Why would Black people riot and burn down their neighborhoods?" because it is not a rational process, it is full of emotion and assumptions.

The best we can do is to educate people to try to reach them and let them know how they will be affected by each party or candidate and hope they make the correct choice.

[Beachnutt]

27. 👇

[Walleye]

28. I believe there are many who call themselves Christian who are convinced that God will punish them if they vote for Dem

Democrats, is that simple. You can hear it in their voices. They are afraid of god’s punishment. I don’t know how to campaign against that

[DFW]

29. Think of the engineer in the old fable of the French Revolution

A teacher, a lawyer, and an engineer are all condemned by the revolutionaries to die at the guillotine. The only way they get spared is if the guillotine mysteriously malfunctions, which was taken as a sign from God that the condemned was to be spared. Needless to say, it didn't happen often.

First came the teacher. He was asked--blindfolded or not. "Not!" he said. Look down or look up? "Look up!" He was placed on the guillotine. The sign was given, and the blade was released. Less than a meter before severing the teacher's head, the blade stopped cold. "It's sign from God!" cried the crowd, and the teacher was set free.

Then came the lawyer. He was asked--blindfolded or not. "Not!" he said. Look down or look up? "Look up!" He, too, was placed on the guillotine. The sign was given, and the blade was released. Less than a meter before severing the teacher's head, the blade again stopped cold. "It's another sign from God!" cried the crowd, and the lawyer was also set free.

Last was the engineer. He was asked--blindfolded or not. "Not!" he said. Look down or look up? "Look up!" he was placed on the guillotine. The sign was given, but before the blade could be released, the engineer yelled, "Wait! I see what the problem is!"

Today, that engineer would be a proud member of the Republican Party.

[David__77]

30. Most people aren't very political in a self-conscious manner.

Many millions don’t even vote. Of those that do, their attentiveness to “political issues” is low.

[Qutzupalotl]

31. Some believe protecting fetuses is more important than

their personal situation, and would vote accordingly, even at their own expense, even if it meant lower wages or a worse economy.

It's still a form of self-interest, though; they believe subjugating their own interests in favor of (what they believe to be) righteousness will reward them in development of character or accumulation of virtue. But to them, it's placing an ideal above their self-interest.

If I agreed with them, I might call it commendable, but of course they cause many others to suffer over people that don't yet exist.

[The Wizard]

32. The stupid and fearful

vote according to their worst fears and lowest instincts.

[Raine]

38. They are looking after their interests

which is different then yours. People have different priorities, even if they're the same they often rank them different.

[Emile]

40. Masochists