Article

2012-06-09 Home Front: Culture Wars

Why Working-Class People Vote Conservative

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by trailing wife 2012-06-09 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 Because they want to conserve that they have?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2012-06-09 01:21|| 2012-06-09 01:21|| Front Page Top

#2 "In sum, the left has a tendency to place caring for the weak, sick and vulnerable above all other moral concerns. It is admirable and necessary that some political party stands up for victims of injustice, racism or bad luck."

Except.. traditionally, the democrat party has been of opposite peer.

Were not the Northern States all Red States under Lincoln, and now both parties have reversed state-wise? Why?

Southern states are now red and northern blue. Why has not writ of this subject even crept into journalistic history?

I find it fascinating what may be learnt by the shifting of the parties through the political arena. Start Civil War and move forward - Wilson, Johnson,FDR ... "progressively worse" and surely lack of quality.

Any takers? I really should have prose this to Small Wars Journal, but after their Sherman Coin thing, I hit overload FAwesomes.

Thought it would be a neat subject anyways.

Posted by newc 2012-06-09 05:30|| 2012-06-09 05:30|| Front Page Top

#3 Whats the matter with Kansas?

Don't the Democrats stand up for the little guy, and try to redistribute the wealth downwards?

No. What they want is the sob story. The cost of democrat empowerment is the abdication of self authority. Its the collectivism of ants, with the foresight of grasshoppers.

Posted by swksvolFF 2012-06-09 07:46|| 2012-06-09 07:46|| Front Page Top

#4 Don't the Democrats stand up for the little guy, and try to redistribute the wealth downwards?

Sort of along the lines of 'If it weren't for the masters up in the Plantation House, how would those poor slaves cope?' Those up in the House and their most favored seem not to go without during all the 'redistribution'. All animals may be equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-06-09 08:37|| 2012-06-09 08:37|| Front Page Top

#5 I've read many such articles in my time and this one actually seems to do a pretty good job.

The one flaw that it has is a common one. It defines "self-interest" purely in terms of what the gov't (aka liberals) will give me.

People are smarter than that and realize that while a hand out may help in the short term it won't teach me to fish (to mix metaphors). Also, perhaps unconciously, people realize that a dynamic economic environment, with people moving up and down the ladder is more conducive to growth and prosperity for the individual as well as society as a whole. The entropy of "fairness", defined as equality of outcome, leaves nothing but boredom and stasis, except for those up in the Plantation House (thx P2K).

In general people don't want to return to the middle ages where the nobility tell you what to do and when to do it and how to do it so that everyone is "equal" except, of course, the nobility.

Posted by AlanC 2012-06-09 09:00|| 2012-06-09 09:00|| Front Page Top

#6 Blue collar workers identify with the right? Something like 38% of the public union voter households said they voted for Walker in exit polls in Wisconsin. Not a majority but surprising considering how much money and effort the left and unions threw at this election. In practice, it may be that people on the left just don't like their leadership and what they stand for and what they do. Union leadership like government leadership is just one more elitist group trying to take more tax money, over-regulate, and intrude in their lives. We may all become unified in our dislikes rather than out likes.

Posted by JohnQC 2012-06-09 10:11|| 2012-06-09 10:11|| Front Page Top

#7 Ahhh...the Egg-Head version of Obamas' "Cling" comments. They just can't bring themselves to admit that there's almost zero distinction between self-intrest and moral-intrest. It's because they loathe the notion that the people who don't share their beliefs can somehow be considered rational.

Posted by DepotGuy 2012-06-09 10:27|| 2012-06-09 10:27|| Front Page Top

#8 A basic flaw in this guy's approach is to equate "caring" with a "creating a giant federal bureaucracy charged with administering care". When the church ladies bring food to a sick neighbor, that doesn't really count as "caring" to the left. (Why, the ladies shouldn't be going to church to begin with.)

Posted by Matt 2012-06-09 11:05|| 2012-06-09 11:05|| Front Page Top

#9 All of us who bend/shape/join metal for a living are supposed to bend over backwards for the party that's been implementing a Morgenthau Plan of a thousand cuts on American industry?

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2012-06-09 11:20|| 2012-06-09 11:20|| Front Page Top

#10 When the church ladies bring food to a sick neighbor, that doesn't really count as "caring" to the left

And in NYC, it'd likely be against the law as well.

Posted by Pappy 2012-06-09 11:38|| 2012-06-09 11:38|| Front Page Top

#11 The article misses the concept of principles entirely. Some folks believe in right or wrong over give me, give me.

Posted by Rjschwarz 2012-06-09 14:55|| 2012-06-09 14:55|| Front Page Top

#12 Bingo, P2k.

Posted by Barbara 2012-06-09 15:13|| 2012-06-09 15:13|| Front Page Top

#13 I posted the piece because of the last paragraph, which I read as the author's data-based warning to those on the left that they are badly misreading a situation which is going to get steadily worse for them:

In sum, the left has a tendency to place caring for the weak, sick and vulnerable above all other moral concerns. It is admirable and necessary that some political party stands up for victims of injustice, racism or bad luck. But in focusing so much on the needy, the left often fails to address -- and sometimes violates -- other moral needs, hopes and concerns. When working-class people vote conservative, as most do in the US, they are not voting against their self-interest; they are voting for their moral interest. They are voting for the party that serves to them a more satisfying moral cuisine. The left in the UK and USA should think hard about their recipe for success in the 21st century.

I also thought it might amuse some of our gentle readers to go to the link at the bottom of the page and supply the author with additional data, data being the sum of sufficient anecdotes.

Posted by trailing wife 2012-06-09 19:38|| 2012-06-09 19:38|| Front Page Top

#14 "It is admirable and necessary that some political party stands up for victims of injustice, racism or bad luck."

You're equating "bad luck" with the other two?

a. You're an idiot.

b. Too bad the liberals don't actually give a rat's ass about these "victims," except for how the libs can use said victims to their own ends (i.e., for getting power and money for themselves). >:-(

Posted by Barbara 2012-06-09 20:48|| 2012-06-09 20:48|| Front Page Top

23:50 JosephMendiola
23:47 gorb
23:38 JosephMendiola
23:37 gorb
23:36 gorb
23:33 newc
23:32 gorb
22:32 Dale
22:17 Dale
21:54 Mikey Hunt
21:47 Mikey Hunt
21:39 Mikey Hunt
21:28 Mikey Hunt
21:27 European Conservative
21:01 Hellfish
20:50 Barbara
20:48 Barbara
20:34 Barbara
20:33 tipper
20:20 Thing From Snowy Mountain
19:52 Whiskey Mike
19:45 trailing wife
19:38 trailing wife
19:33 trailing wife