This post is just pissing me off. Actually, Andrew Leonard’s take on it is fine, but the whole basis of the idea that there are scads of people out there voting against their own best interest either by being poor and white and voting Republican or being rich and white and voting for higher taxes is a sham.

People DO vote in their own self interest. For the reasons Andrew stated

I personally would be inclined to argue that pro-fiscal stimulus rich liberals are following John Maynard Keynes when they willingly accept higher taxes to pay for government spending because they understand that this makes economic sense of the whole country. If all the workers are laid off, who is going to buy the products or services that allow rich people to get rich? Supporting an active government effort to shorten a recession seems like pure self interest to me, whether you are rich or poor.

I think that’s a pretty good take on why rich people in urban areas vote for higher taxes.

Why poor white men in rural areas vote Republican is pretty easy to explain too. The Democratic party doesn’t offer them anything. Sure it’s supposed to be the party of the liberal working class, yet the Dems have failed to offer anything to the working class, black or white. What they have done is put in place affirmative action (much needed, but not perfect) which puts more competitive stress on poor white men for jobs. The few qualities that have made their lives tolerable over the course of American history (being white and male) by giving them advantages over the non-white and non-male are being taken away, without any good solutions to replace them. In their eyes, at least the Republicans want to let them keep their unfair advantages, even if they don’t offer any eal kind of improvement either.

Until we on the left figure out that we have to make things better for everyone at the bottom (black, white, brown, male, female, etc) then there will be a large section of the population that resents any efforts we make to improve things for people on a group basis. We need more jobs for everyone, not JUST more access to jobs for some. We need better wages for everyone, not just more lenient immigration policies for people willing to work for a fraction of fair wages.

Those poor white men ain’t stupid, they are holding on to their only advantage. It is our failure as progressives that we haven’t come up with a plan that shows them a better way for everyone.