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Why people consistently vote against their own interests to benefit the rich?
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this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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Probably unpopular answer, but it's not some clear cut "this political party has better policies for everyone". Republican policies usually are better for people living in rural areas, and Democratic policies are usually better for people in cities. I'm sure people will debate this, but this is the reason why people typically vote depending on where they live. At the very least, they believe that their party has better policies for them and their way of life.
My personal (anecdotal evidence) is that I work for a small business in a rural area, and our main customers are other small business owners (usually self employed or under 5 employees). Over the last 3 presidents, the Obama years were rough for our company, we had explosive growth during the Trump years, and then we've had stagnant growth over the past 4 years. Our largest competitor went out of business this past year, which sent us a lot of new customers, but we've also had a lot of our customers go out of business as well, so we've been pretty stagnant. Being stagnant isn't terrible, we don't have shareholders or anything, but the cost of living has increased and company profit/wages haven't which is a problem. That said I know we're doing pretty well compared to a lot of people here.
Another (once again anecdotal) example is that I have a friend who paints murals full time, for the past 30ish years. He told me that he does well with either Republicans or Democrats in office, but that his customers change. During republican presidents, his customer base is usually local businesses wanting to decorate their stores. During democratic presidents, his customer base is usually towns, state buildings, schools, etc.
But anyways, I'd be very interested to hear from some people living in cities if there's a visible uptick in income/etc when we have a democratic president, or in general what your personal observations are on how which president affects your local businesses/income/prices/etc.
Obama took office during the Great Recession and rebuilt the economy. Biden took office during COVID and rebuilt the economy. (I know you're going to try to argue with me on that, so I will just say that we recovered faster than any other developed nation before you do.) You're kinda dense if you think that as soon as a president from another party enters office it would affect the economy so much as these events did...
For small businesses, a president taking power can immediately affect business. Small business owners make decisions based on their expectations of future, colored by their emotional state, so if they believe that a Republican President will be good for business, then they're more likely to order new machinery, hire an extra person, etc. In an ecosystem of small businesses, that optimism feeds on itself.
Happens in big business, too. S&P500 gained 3+% the day after election, which (if you don't believe the daily stock market is just gambling) presumably means that 'the market' expects 3% more growth out of all those companies, just by Trump's win being formalized. Stock price up makes it easier for companies to raise capital to expand, buy out competitors, etc
Neither of those things is "the economy," but they can feel like it, if you're close enough.
and considering that index gained 90% over the course of last 5 years and 700% over the last 30, that is a strong indication of... something. probably random variance 😆.
yeah, that is strong assumption 😂
I'm surprised you read past this complete fallacy. I stopped there.
I started working this job after Obama had already been in office one term, so I was mainly comparing the final 4 years. I'm really glad I was still in college for the first term when the economy was really rough.
Covid did have an undeniable effect on the economy at the start of Biden's term, and I don't consider that his fault or anything. It does feel like we generally haven't really recovered from it though, gas prices finally came back down but everything else is crazy expensive still. For example, I do electrical work, and a 250' roll of 12/2 wire went from $35 in 2019 to $140 today.
I think it's funny you call people dense when in fact they see the difference with their own eyes. Like a small business owner is making less money and people try to convince him that it has nothing to do with the elected government. I don't think Fubar is the dense one here at all.
macro economy does not work like that. any complex system has inertia like an ocean-liner. you turn a wheel and it turns after 10 miles.
seeing something is nice, but analysis of what you see is not necessarily withing the reach of "common sense", which is why we have scientist who study the problem for all their life and professionals in their field.
and that is why people trying to manipulate masses are trying to convince dense people not to trust the science and trust their common sense. because such gullible people can then be convinced about anything they decide to.
also @[email protected]'s story reads like a really bad republican fan-fiction. "explosive growth" under trump and doom and despair under democratic president. come on, no administration has that big effect on your daily life. there are countries where it takes time to establish government after the elections and guess what, the day to day life still goes on even with no government present.