--maybe too stupid to deserve democracy.
I've always thought that the reason most Americans do not vote their interests, but instead support those of the super-wealthy, is that they actually expect to be among the super-wealthy themselves some day.
So goes a good part of the argument of an OP-Ed piece in saturday's NYTimes.
People vote their aspirations.The most telling polling result from the 2000 election was from a Time magazine survey that asked people if they are in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans say they are in the richest 1 percent and a further 20 percent expect to be someday. So right away you have 39 percent of Americans who thought that when Mr. Gore savaged a plan that favored the top 1 percent [the repeal of the estate tax, which is explicitly for the mega-upper class], he was taking a direct shot at them.
comment I think the idea that people put the interests of the wealthy above their own because of some AMerican sense of optimism is BS. People identify with corporate political positions for the same reason they cry over Princess Diana, and believe that Oprah cares about them, and get angry about OJ Simpson but not George W. (and believe that Democratic politicians are secretly progressive!): because these are the beliefs that the corporate media (acting in their actual, not imagined, self-interest) propogates.
Also wanted to say that this website is great--very well-chosen items.