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Comment by PathOfEclipse | Hacker News Reader

You are completely missing the point as to why people voted Republican recently, and of course, doing it with an air of smug superiority and vague references to racism. LBJ's quote ironically applies in reverse to the democrats of today, especially and including some minority communities. He might have said:

"If you can convince the lowest person that his situation is not his fault, he won't notice that you're making it harder for him to rise up. Hell, give him welfare and a system to blame, and he'll happily and loyally stay down forever."

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>give him welfare and a system to blame, and he'll happily and loyally stay down forever.

So.....farmers?

The welfare tropes are so exhaustingly played out, especially when all data shows that red voters get far more welfare.

https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal...

This applies in most states at the local level too:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/why-are-w...

Also, you're ignoring the voters who explicitly tell us why they're voting that way: "he's not hurting the people he needs to be": https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/tr...

The data shows that states with red voters also have high welfare rates. That's very different than showing that red voters get more welfare.

Given that welfare recipients are among the minority in every single state, it's very possible that the welfare recipients are voting majority blue and still losing their state elections

To support what you are saying, I found this article: https://wallstreetpit.com/89671-are-welfare-recipients-mostl...

"Hardly surprising, we see that in a two-party split, 60-80% of welfare recipients are Democrats, while full time Workers are evenly divided between parties."

That's a very narrow definition of "welfare". Farm subsidies are welfare, as are corporate loan guarantees, pro sports stadiums, tax breaks for the energy industry and so on, and those overwhelmingly benefit red states.

And who can forget "don't let the government get ahold of my Medicare"? Conservative voters love to believe that the only good welfare is the welfare that benefits them (similar to how "cancel culture" is bad until it's time to ban books from school libraries and so many other hypocrisies).

Where's the evidence?

If you trust Vox to give you insight into Republican voters, then I cannot take you any more seriously than if I cited a Federalist article to tell you why people voted for Biden. My trust for the Guardian is only slightly higher than for Vox, but I find this article at least seems far more balanced: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/why-did-peop...

It includes things like:

* Voters felt Trump was more genuine than Hillary. That's not hard to believe. Trump is raw and real to a fault. Hillary is a corrupt career politician.

* Make America prosperous again. Democrats like to ignore history that shows that conservative presidents bring far more prosperity; leftist presidents destroy prosperity.

* Trump was the best or only conservative option. In general, the best reason to vote for a candidate is simply that the other candidate is worse.

* A reaction to Obama. Thomas Sowell at the time believed Obama was the U.S. worst president ever. While not a historian myself, I am inclined to take the opinion seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UpiNiaak18&list=WL&index=1&...

And, if you are sick of the welfare tropes, you probably need more Sowell in your life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdwXoKTW3Ew

> Democrats like to ignore history that shows that conservative presidents bring far more prosperity; leftist presidents destroy prosperity.

Oh man, this was my 8th grade understanding in a Republican household.

However it's not very hard to look at the US economy and debt under Clinton, then Bush, then Obama as recent, alternating, and stark differences. Clinton had one of the best US economies in history with a budget surplus, Bush squandered that on wars and the 08 recession. Obama picked up the pieces of a recession and brought us back to economic strength from the brink.

Then there's the crucial point in history where the three consecutive conservative presidencies, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover led us to the Great Depression vs. FDR's birth of the modern American middle class...

(Yes, I read and appreciate Sowell. And when I say the president's names, I mean their administration's policies.)

Well sowell blames the depression first on hoover for doing the very progressive thing of interfering with the economy and he made things worse. Sowell also states that all of FDR's policies made everything worse as well.

Similarly, sowell believes democrats caused the 08 recession via affirmative action housing policies and that Obama put the economy into a a coma until trump got things back in order. Sowell is an economist by trade, by the way.

We can both agree the economy thrived under Clinton, and I would add bush senior. Clinton was a rarity for being relatively fiscally responsible.

Are you sowell speaking in the third person or do you just base everything you believe in one author?

If sowell had a cookbook I bet I could guess your diet.

The Sowell diet! You guessed it! I can't help it if he's the best source to cite for many current social issues. It's not like diversifying my sources would change your mind.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=111 There you go. Another author explaining how FDR only made things worse.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-obama-recovery-took-so-...

Here's another author explaining how Obama damaged our economy. And of course Biden is damaging it even further.

Its all well and good to take people at face value when you ask them a direct question, but when the data consistently bears out that that is not the truth you have a responsibility to look at reality.

Response bias is well studied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Response_bias

Especially when one has been fed a narrative specifically to cover underlying beliefs in something that has more social acceptability.

"The democrats are smug" okay...lets ask the follow-up question. Why? how? please explain? Taking people at their literal word for why they do something is basically the worst possible version of any social sciences research.

> but when the data consistently bears out that that is not the truth you have a responsibility to look at reality.

I have to admit you've lost me. What reality are we talking about?

> "The democrats are smug" okay...lets ask the follow-up question. Why? how? please explain?

Thomas Sowell has written entire books about the arrogance of leftism. This one I've read personally: https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp...

This one I would like to find time to read: https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-S...

From my own personal experience, it takes a certain arrogance to believe in authoritarianism, that a few elite should be making all the decisions for the unwashed masses. This describes the current democrat party to a tee.

Similarly, it takes a certain arrogance to believe you have all the answers, and similarly, to ignore all the evidence that disproves your assumptions. This describes most so-called progressives.

In contrast, it takes humility to be a conservative, recognize that you don't have all the answers, that things are the way they are for a reason, and that the world is complex with more far tradeoffs than pure solutions.

> it takes a certain arrogance to believe in authoritarianism, that a few elite should be making all the decisions for the unwashed masses. This describes the current democrat party to a tee.

I see you got the names of the Democrat and Republican parties confused. As the 2020 election showed a minority of the country tried to throw out the results of an election to usurp power for their authoritarian...

No I got the parties right. Democrats are the true authoritarians right now. No amount of January 6th political theater can cover it up. It's too massive to hide.

Making you feel bad isn’t authoritarianism.

I’m pretty convinced parent comment is parody. Sadly that’s a position I’m holding just for my own sanity

This is what is meant by the “arrogance”. Peoples opinions are not accepted as inherently credible. The bad faith and the intellectual dishonesty and the projection are not an accident, they are a narrative tool that metastasizes

“People have written books”

Is not a response to “why do you hold this opinion”

It strikes me as pretty much straight up satire to use as your primary source the writings of a guy with degrees from Harvard and works for the Hoover institution at standford. To then go from the arrogance of the left to the arrogance of authoritarianism…I honestly think this is parody.

The basics here, that are worth reiterating, is that there is, as usual, no serious people on the left claiming they have all the answers…the only people claiming that are constructing useful strawpeople to then try and tear down.

I'm glad I can amuse you with satire that isn't. I challenge you to read one of those books and open your mind a little. If you aren't blind, the authoritarianism and arrogance of the left is visible everywhere. And Sowell is anything but the typical Harvard grad. So there is nothing funny about my citation.

> give him welfare... and he'll... stay down

Are you sure it's not: he'll fare... well?

No, I meant "stay down": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdwXoKTW3Ew

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDwDRGtvDrQ

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCVnydB3bj0

I am familiar with the allegory of the grasshopper and the ant, but I consider it mythological, and not scientifically rigorous.

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