I am often perplexed by people whose voting patterns seem to consistently run counter to their own good--why poor southerners vote for the most regressive Republicans.

As a partial explanation of this phenomenon. I offer the following link. It's making the rounds on the psychology listserves this morning.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/spite-is-good-spite-works.html?f...

Spite-is-good-spite-works.

Excerpt:

By NATALIE ANGIER

March 31, 2014

Reporting in February in the journal Psychological Assessment, Dr. Marcus and his colleagues presented the preliminary results from their new “spitefulness scale,” a 17-item survey they created to assess individual differences in spitefulness, just as existing personality tests measure traits like agreeableness and extroversion.

A total of 946 college students and 297 adults were asked to rate how firmly they agreed with sentiments like “If my neighbor complained about the appearance of my front yard, I would be tempted to make it look worse just to annoy him or her” or “If I opposed the election of an official, I would happily see the person fail even if that failure hurt my community” or “I would be willing to take a punch if it meant someone I did not like would receive two punches.”

From the survey and related experiments, the researchers determined that men were generally more spiteful than women and young adults more spiteful than older ones, and that spitefulness generally cohabited with traits like callousness, Machiavellianism and poor self-esteem — but not with agreeableness, conscientiousness or a tendency to feel guilt.

Dr. Marcus also identified circumstances that can provoke spiteful outbursts from otherwise temperate people: partisan politics, for example. (“If the other candidate wins, I hope the economy crashes.”) Or bitter divorces, like the husband who threw his savings into a trash bin, Dr. Marcus said, to avoid sharing any money with his ex-wife.

Well you could have just asked....


We attempt to pick the lesser of two evils. While us poor southerners share a homogeneous culture within our geographical area, we do not always share core values and seldom to we share the same economic sub-systems.

When a liberal candidate talks about raising taxes to give to the poor, (in our state) you can be VERY sure that all decisions will be by race. This is why its its a parody to do white face, and a crime to black face.

But I think the article is valid as is your point. I have not voted either democrat nor republician since Ronald Reagan. Spite?  Or has neither party seen fit represent me. I COULD ( as my mother insists) voted for the "closest" fit, instead of throwing my vote away (her words).

If both parties are going to take from me, and neither party will benefit me or my ideals, why shouldn't I vote spitefully?  Where you are obviously mistaken is in thinking or failing to think, that either party has EVER (since Lincoln) given one flip about the poorest state in the nation.  Money talks and BS walks.. and this state has none ( money). And BOTH parties like it that way. Democrats can BUY votes with welfare checks, and Republicans can attempt to buy votes by offering to not raise taxes. If the state were to ever have money then the politicians could not buy our votes, they would lose power.. so the farce continues.

So we do not vote against our own self interests - its just that for the time being... that may soon change... lower taxes beats welfare checks in the battle for our votes.

 

You make some valid points Mr. Pine.

I wish politicians would take a different approach and offer people something positive to vote for instead of against...and not be defensive against the fear mongering attacks by the right.

Sometimes people are just voting the lesser of evils.

Sometimes people are not voting because they don't want to be part of a corrupt system.

"Spite" quickly becomes frustration, hopelessness or any number of other things when you're talking about politics.

Politicians by and large don't represent ANYONE'S interests but the wealthy, and this probably explains why only 25% of voters vote in any given election.

One of the biggest problems regarding politicians is the people who vote (for them).
Most people who vote do so along strict party lines, never really listening to the candidates and weighing their answers.

They get their "news" from a source that echos their already held beliefs, never challenging their own beliefs, or information source, and willingly believing anything against the opposition, or their own beliefs....

Sheep and herd mentality, and it keeps the media rich, as the sheep need to be constantly fed indoctrination.

Its not about fixing the ills of our nation, its about getting and keeping the power in the party....

You vote religiously for one party, you are the problem...... even if you don't believe it.

WebsterMark wrote on 04/01/14 at 17:41:19:

raydawg wrote on 04/01/14 at 16:44:21:


So if I only vote along party lines, when do I ever listen to the media?

Now that I've had time to get over the hilarity of it all I am able to address a few items from the original message. The most glaring is the massively arrogant assumption that Republican voters are voting against their self interest.

As if everyone's interest included being warehoused in crime ridden ghettos, subjected to the incomptetence of teachers unions, tossed the crumbs of subsistence from a bureaucrtatic wellfare system with the goal of getting dragged out to the polls once every couple years to vote for the "crack" dealers in office that you have been made dependant upon through strategic social decay.

Maybe voters saw how liberalsim/socialism/marxism has destroyed people in other places and decided that it was in their best interest to NOT END UP LIKE THEM. Maybe living like the ant is better than dying like the grasshopper. Maybe the plantation life isn't all it is cracked up to be.

Here's what your version of "voting for your self interest" gets you in California:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2014/04/01/california-and-leland...

An exerpt-

"You would think a responsible party would do all they could to distance themselves from such corrupt politicians. Despite Republican attempts to expel them from the Senate, however, on a party line vote Democrats blocked that effort.

Of course, the reason the Democrats did that was to protect their super-majority in the Senate, which allows them to pass tax legislation without a single Republican vote. In other words, having absolute power is more important to them than any semblance of integrity."

I smell a troll