No Stupid Questions

Usually this happens when you dont have a democracy. Establish a system with rank choice voting and a few dozen candidates, and you'll see votes closer aligned with voter interests

"I might be rich one day"

Generally people tend to focus on one thing and don't pay any attention to the side effects. Morons want lower taxes for themselves and don't pay attention to the fact that the wealthy get the most benefit out of conservative cuts or that they just defunded the benefits of having a government like enforced food safety regulations. Or they care about abortion because they buy lies about post birth abortions and ignore everything else. Or they just teally hate immigrants and want to be mad and don't care that the party of hate works against their other self interests.

Many people are stupid. Like really, really stupid.

They get manipulated about and distracted by certain issues. The people who want power know this and exploit topics such as guns, abortion, fear of crime, racism/nationalism, sexism, economic issues and taxes. Plenty of people vote republican because they have been convinced that Democrats will take their guns, allow in too many immigrants (with the implicit idea that immigrants are bad somehow), be worse on the economy, lower taxes, let criminals get off easy, reduce the influence of Christianity, and so forth.

There’s also the decades of propaganda about socialism and communism, and against social safety nets as well as government and anything run by the government vs a private entity. So basically, because they’re not very aware or well informed and all themselves to be convinced by propaganda.

Most are wanting an end to this current system so they’ll ‘play’ it out knowing albeit the struggle, Democracy has left the building and late stage capitalism is showing the disparity of the predators and preys of society

Because it's no longer about benefits or interests.

It's about the "my side won, your side lost, get over it" mentality. It's about the tribalism and making sure you keep your ire focused on your fellow man rather than looking up and seeing the source of your problems

And it's not just the US. It's fucking everywhere.

The rich are clever and very well coordinated

It all boils down to education

The root of it is that we don't teach skepticism or critical thinking in public schools. Seriously.

Question authority. Question everything. But especially question authority. They rarely have your best interests in mind.

In the US, is this actually the moment past the point of no return? Would you ever allow yourself to accept that truth if so, or will you need to see actually bodies in the streets before you believe it's over?

Put simply: They’re being lied to. Consistently and perniciously.

The lie is that their vote is going to benefit them somehow. Or that it’s going to hurt someone else exclusively. And, sometimes, it’s both—that it’ll hurt someone else, while bringing a benefit.

In all three cases, the real truth—that they themselves will still suffer—is neatly hidden away.

Informed consent: People are not against exploitation. They just want to switch sides. Why would you vote for something that cripples you once you got rich?

Uninformed consent: They honestly believe they are voting for their own interests.

Indifferent consent: Usually single issue or ideology-driven voter.

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In the US at least, the systematic demolishing of the education system has led to a vast reduction in overall education and critical thinking skills. This was done on purpose. That, combined with the unexpected boon of the Internet, has led to massive wealth shifting from the many to the few.

You see the results of this change everywhere, especially on the Internet. Lack of basic spelling and grammar skills are just one symptom. All of that is to say that humans are primates and easily trained.

The incredibly recent Sri Lankan election enters the chat… and feels sad at being ignored.

Propaganda. Lack of education. There's a reason they want to defund public schools. They're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. :)

Because everyone thinks of themselves as a potential rich person. Or in other words: people think that being rich is the ideal state, so let’s align everything around that.

If we truly put a yoke on the rich and contained them, we would also be reining in the smallfolks dreams.

By contrast, rich people don’t sit around dreaming about being smallfolk and planning aspirationally for the day that will happen.

They believe it will benefit them one day.

The rich have billions to spend on focus groups so they know exactly which buttons to push so that people vote the way they want.

Because they want to see other people suffer

One's "own best interest" can take a lot of different forms. Especially when the number and variety of plausible candidates are finite. Your preferred candidate for a given office will rarely line up perfectly with your own values. There's a compromise there.

If I vote for my own finances, it may come at the cost of my morals. It I vote for my own moral interest, it may cost me more. If I vote for my own power, it may cost someone else their freedoms. How heavily do I weight my own interests against those of a wider society? Political identities and philosophies are complicated, and can't necessarily be reduced to a single binary choice that is "best" in every scenario.