It is common in Left Blogistan to hear people express surprise about deplorables’ voting patterns, because a vote for Republicons seems to be “against their own best interests”.
Deplorables hate it when we say that, of course, because they dislike the assumption that anyone on the Blue Team knows what their best interests are.
Maybe they are right.
Maybe we don’t know what their best interests are, as THEY perceive them.
Over time I have come to see the ways I have judged their best interests based on my own values. I assumed struggling working class and middle class voters wanted higher paying jobs, good schools for their children, and affordable healthcare. I assumed they would want these things because those are the things that I would want if I were in their situation.
So when they vote for the Republicon candidates who oppose minimum wage increases, promote austerity budgets and pledge to kill Ocare, it always seemed to me they were making a mistake, hurting themselves for “no reason”.
I assumed they voted that way because they didn’t know any better, and giving them more factual information would help.
It has only been recently that I thought of a different angle that now seems obvious in hindsight.
Deplorables have proven time and time again they are willing to
- close schools and hospitals
- accept lower wages and poor work conditions
- starve for lack of food stamps, unemployment benefits, and various forms of income support
- deprive their babies, their elders and themselves of access to affordable healthcare
- and do without a myriad of other perks of civilized society
in order to keep “those people” from getting the same benefits.
“Those people” means something different in different parts of the country depending on which minorities are most numerous and which prejudices are strongest.
It only hit me today that perhaps, from their point of view, they are NOT voting against their self-interest.
Perhaps their highest self-interest is the psychological need in a rapidly changing multicultural world to continue feeling as though someone is below them, and they are not stuck at the very bottom of the heap.
Just think about it: if NO ONE has schools, hospitals, good jobs, unemployment benefits or healthcare, deplorables can still claim (in their own minds) superiority over “those people” by virtue of skin color, social class, birthright citizenship, or being members of the dominant religion.
Voting for Democrats might give “those people” too many perks of civilized society. Too many social services could create more opportunities for blacks, Muslims, immigrants and “those people”. It might allow them to achieve to the point where they might get uppity and think they are equal to their “betters”. It might allow marginalized people to rise above the station assigned to them by culture and tradition.
One of them might even be (gasp!) elected President.
Twice!
Then deplorables would not be able to avoid looking around and seeing themselves all alone at the bottom of the barrel. Their kids are never going to go to the nation’s top universities and write best selling books and be elected president!
But voting for Republicons, and giving everybody nothing, means deplorables can at least enjoy the historical advantages of white skin and institutionalized racism, and therefore ensure they are not the folks on the very bottom rung of the privilege ladder.
When you have nothing left to be proud of except the tradition that says the lowest white man is better than the highest black man, voting for the party that affirms that tradition IS in your best interest, at least psychologically. It is literally worth money to them.
People who have almost nothing will give up what little they have if it allows them to retain their pride.