Hacker News Reader

Comment by underseacables | Hacker News Reader

When you look at the electorate of the PVV in general, it consists of people who experience more difficulties to get by. They are more lonely...

Sounds rather condescending. I don't like it when armchair experts place such subjective labels on people. "Lonely, less intelligent," etc. It's second guessing a persons vote which is a tacit way of undermining that vote.

Rather they should analyze policy and try to understand why those policies did not have a positive impact on the lives of voters who opposed them, not assume it is because they have some negative attribute.

View on HN

In general the trope of a smug liberal is a thing, but I think you made the jump to intelligence:

>>Matthijs Rooduijn, associate professor of political science at Amsterdam University, says such views are common among Wilders voters. “When you look at the electorate of the PVV in general, it consists of people who experience more difficulties to get by. They are more lonely. They feel that they are being neglected. They have tough lives basically, economically but also culturally,” he said.

Of course this trope doesn’t come from nowhere, but this is a professor of political science, who said nothing disrespectful about the intelligence of the group. I am inclined to think that the observation is based on some research findings and has some relevance.

There was a post yesterday, or maybe the day before, here on HN about a BBC study that talked about intelligence related to a vote for Brexit. They claimed that people of low intelligence voted for Brexit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38413594

While I worry about the recent success populism is having in Europe I too take issue with the way the politicians and their voters get presented in media. "Far right" is overused, worries about massive uncontrolled immigration played down and attributed to racism, etc. People don't just start voting populists out of thin air. They face some real issues. Ignoring those and resorting to labels will only push them further into populism and maybe some real extremist politics since there's nobody else addressing their concerns.

I appreciate the sentiment but the idea that people support policy that’s good for them isn’t much better either.

For an obvious example check how many people support the Affordable Care Act vs Obamacare.

> For an obvious example check how many people support the Affordable Care Act vs Obamacare.

100%, since they are the same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act

Also, the ACA has undoubtedly resulted in more people getting more healthcare than in pre-ACA. The provisions to require covering people with pre existing health conditions and eliminating out of pocket maximums are a massive improvement over the pre-ACA days.

The point was that a lot of people support things differently based on what they're called.

And, yes, if nothing else people with pre-existing conditions being able to get healthcare outside of employers (even if expensive) is a significant win IMO.

I think the "joke" was that opinion polls will show very different results if you call it "The Affordable Care Act" vs. if you call it "Obamacare" -- a fact which casts doubt on the decision-making abilities of voters.

affordable care act vs Obamacare

Those are the same thing…

That's the point. People liked the policy, but we're biased about anything with the word "Obama".

I did not like the policy. It caused my health insurance to jump from about $40 a month to $300 a month. My deductible went up, my co-pay went up, it got worse. There was a time when I had to let the health insurance go because I couldn't afford it anymore. The government should not have intervened in the marketplace, and I will not support a government health insurance program, everything the government gets involved in goes completely out of control.

A basket of deplorables

Funny coming from The Guardian, the working man's newspaper.

I don't see it as condescending, I see it as just factual descriptions. Of course, assuming that their research is sound.

They should understand the voters' profiles as well as analyze why previous policies did not yield positive results. The two are not mutually exclusive, and are very probably interrelated.

Stupidity is the new elitist insult. It started to be really noticeable with COVID-19. People with different opinions were simply labeled as too stupid to understand the gravity of the situation. Same is happeneing with democracy. Voting for the other side? Must be dumb as fuck... People seem to have lost the ability to accept that there can be different opinions.

And, if not stupid, they must be doing it deliberately, so they're evil.

> Sounds rather condescending.

It is, and it isn't really true either.

* 17 procent aged 18-34 voted PVV against 7 procent in the previous elections.

* 10 procent of people with a higher education voted PVV.

* PVV won country-side, but also in coties.

* M/F ratio is 53-47.

Source: NRC, 25-11-2023

Also: "difficulties to get by" should have been left-wing parties' priorities, but just one of them has been campaigning on that consistently (although they lost again in these elections).

> a tacit way of undermining that vote.

It has "deplorables" written all over it. While I don't pretend to have the answers, The Guardian is trying to solve the problem by sticking fingers in their ears and shouting "na na na na na, I can't hear you".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com