One of the bigger complaints of the leftish end of those who still interest themselves in electoral politics is that far too large a swath of the public votes for people who really, truly don't have their best interests in mind. Why do so many working class Americans vote so faithfully for people who openly want them to eat pet food* in their old age, if they are so lucky as to be able to afford it? Why do they continue to do so when it is becoming increasingly obvious that the proportion of human pet-food-eaters is going up even now? (Why do Mississauga immigrant communities vote for the people who want to oppose/reduce immigration for family reunification?)
There are two possible explanations:
- The classic lefty "false consciousness"/propaganda sort of explanation: people are fed lies by corporate media that cause them to identify with the elite and support causes that they believe are in their rational interest but actually are not.
- The alternative by elimination: many people are consciously voting against their own "rational" interest, because they don't conceive of their interests in the same way. "Sticking it" to their neighbours takes priority over some discounted future in which they may be eating out of Fluffy's bowl.
It's probably a bit of both, but needless to say, I nowadays lean towards #2 as being more of a factor than column #1. Lefties spend a lot of (justified) electrons condemning mainstream economics for attempting to deploy ideas based on a ridiculous economic homunculus model to actual policy. But for all that, they seem to believe just as well in an a priori dichotomy between "rational" and "irrational" interests. But there's nothing "irrational" about starving yourself to starve your neighbour. In fact, if you're convinced your neighbour will die first...
Unlocking the reasons for why voters vote is something that the right has spent a lot of time and effort on, and the left hardly at all, even taking into account the disparity of resources between the ends of the political spectrum. It may or may not be too late for electoral politics to fix the world to any degree; I don't know. But I don't think it was really tried.
*I'm aware that it's not necessarily cheaper...but it is a standard trope so *shrug*.
