No Stupid Questions

Do we actually vote to benefit the rich?

Many vote for leaders that openly cater to the rich, but I don’t know that we actually consciously vote to deliberately help the rich.

Those elected people are the ones telling everyone that the rich are the job creators. They used to feed us the farce that trickle-down was viable, they don’t even bother with the lie anymore. The rich are just squatters on wealth. They get that wealth by consolidating businesses, hoarding assets like real estate, creating artificial scarcity, enshittifying everything, and squeezing labor for more productivity while expending massive effort to minimize overall compensation.

And they own the media. All of it. Even the “liberal” media is mealy at best about taxing wealth or anything critical of the uber-wealthy, anything right of center is openly against tax, particularly of anyone with wealth, making the wealthy the “victims” of the left’s ideas while the wealthy are just parasites victimizing us all.

All that aside, the real crux of the issue is identity politics. Being a sycophant of the rich is no longer any different than being a evangelical supply-side Jesus CINO, pro-gun, anti-government, anti-tax, anti-environmental regs, blah blah and all the rest of the mulish conservative BS.

They don’t actually care if we cater to the rich. They care that their team says we should bend over and give the rich everything. Just like their team says school shootings are an acceptable price for having your own personal arsenal, or spreading a potentially deadly disease is better than being inconvenienced by closed restaurants.

Obstinate tribalism has gleefully supplanted critical thought.

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, raise 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.

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

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.

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.

The rich are clever and very well coordinated

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.

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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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

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.

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. :)

It all boils down to education

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?

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.

They believe it will benefit them one day.

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.

There's a substantial assumption that the wealthy know best how to manage wealth and the economy but it's all predicated on the notion that those wealthy people are willing to act in the interest of everyone, when in fact they tend to act on their own personal interest (I mean, if someone has a net worth of over a billion dollars and they're trying to accumulate even more money, that should give you a good idea how their policy will affect people who are making 40k/yr). They tend not to want to create jobs or increase wages more than they want to improve quality of earnings, because they stand to lose a lot and they somehow want more

Fundamental flaw of the democracy: It assumes that people know what's the best for them

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