Unfortunately, con men do a similar thing with our minds, but not so blatantly, which results in people not realizing that they were fooled.<\/p>\n
I would give the majority of politicians the benefit of the doubt and say that they went into politics to try to help society (not to just make as much money\u00a0as possible in underhanded ways). I think Paul Ryan thinks his policies are supposed to help the country. I think Donald Trump thinks the same (as much as he pays any attention to policy).\u00a0And I certainly think people like Al Franken, Tulsi Gabbard, and Ted Lieu\u00a0are trying to help society as much as possible.<\/p>\n
However, at the core of all the politicking\/messaging are actual policies that either help the “average Joe” or hurt him.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Not requiring that insurance companies cover preexisting conditions either hurts the average Joe or helps him.<\/li>\n
- Not letting old coal plants pump a tremendous amount of pollution into our lungs and atmosphere\u00a0either hurts the average Joe or helps him.<\/li>\n
- Not letting oil & gas companies dump toxic, cancer-causing chemicals into our water supplies either hurts the average Joe or helps him. (This includes indirect as well as direct benefits and costs. For example, Joe may not live in an area where this matters, but if Sam does and gets cancer from these chemicals, that can then increase health insurance costs that then hurt Joe.)<\/li>\n
- Requiring that corporations pay a minimum, livable wage either helps\u00a0the average Joe or hurts him. (Again, there are indirect effects here too. Joe doesn’t earn minimum wage, but if the minimum wage is high enough to be a livable minimum wage, that means many more people in his community and society will make enough money for some discretionary spending, which then goes to the local and national economy to a considerable degree and eventually benefits Joe.)<\/li>\n
- Not letting Wall Street gamble in too extreme ways\u00a0helps society to avoid things like the Great Depression and Great Recession.<\/li>\n
- Not giving billionaires massive tax\u00a0loopholes obviously benefits the rest of society.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The somewhat surprising thing is that the Republican Party’s core policies are hugely harmful for the average Joe\u00a0… yet approximately half of average Joe voters vote Republican and don’t understand that they are voting against their own interests.<\/p>\n
The core policy isn’t “small government versus big government” (or variations like “state government versus federal government”), as is often claimed. The core Republican policy in the 21st century is essentially to fight incessantly for an ideal of “no government.”<\/p>\n
Don’t think for a moment that this is about federal versus state rights \u2014 these same Republicans fight the same actual policies on the state level that they fight on the national level, and they fight them on the regional or city level as well. What they are constantly fighting for is “no government,” which is fine on\u00a0certain topics, but not for other topics like the ones I mentioned above.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nHow this\u00a0plays out in\u00a0policy and hurts average Americans has been understood by legitimate researchers for decades. But\u00a0many Republican voters and even politicians don’t get it.<\/p>\n
Who’s the con? Who’s being conned? It’s hard to know precisely who the cons are, since it’s hard to know which\u00a0high-rolling Republicans realize “no government” is a con\u00a0on\u00a0the American people. But there are certainly some super rich Republicans who realize they are robbing the middle class and poor, while there are other Republican leaders who genuinely think deregulating corporations as much as possible\u00a0is somehow a good thing for Joe. (In other words, the con men have sometimes simply been conned themselves, so they aren’t so much con men as idiotic.)<\/p>\n
Again, if you\u00a0only pay attention to political messaging<\/em>, you are\u00a0super misinformed. Messaging is not policy. As David Roberts once pointed out on Grist<\/em>, politics is not policy. Perhaps more than ever before, Democrats are\u00a0labeled communists, socialists, and fascists by hard-right opponents \u2014 but the ironic\/crazy thing is that Democratic congresspeople are probably more anti-government and anti-regulation now than in any time in history. They adopted Republican policies in the 1990s to “get things done,” and those policies have carried over to today or\u00a0even shifted further right. The health care plan Obama got passed is more “corporate-friendly” and “citizen-unfriendly” than what Hillary Clinton tried to get passed in the 1990s, as just one example.<\/p>\n
By and large, Republican voters (and many politicians even!) have been conned …\u00a0putting\u00a0faith in a hugely faulty policy ideal. They have put faith in\u00a0highly effective political branding that is disconnected from the realities of\u00a0that “no government” policy\u00a0obsession. (Remember, the US government is supposed to be “for the people, by the people, and of the people.” Why would that make the government evil? And if your answer is that corporate control of the government is evil, then why would the party constantly deregulating on behalf of corporations be the party to trust?)<\/p>\n
Is it any wonder that Republican politicians and Republican media have focused more and more on criticizing\u00a0academia, scientists, “liberal elites,” and investigative journalists (top media companies)? These are the people who search for and reveal the facts. These are the people who try to go deeper than the superficial spin to unveil fundamental\u00a0truths. These are the people who should not be trusted?<\/p>\n
Just to come back to some actual policy points, let’s be clear about what independent,\u00a0properly conducted research has found:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Regulating polluting industries is good for average American health and wealth.<\/li>\n
- Regulating polluting industries can even be a way to create jobs \u2014 regulation forces innovation, which creates jobs. (Don’t buy that nonsensical “jobs versus the environment” garbage \u2014 it was debunked ages ago.)<\/li>\n
- Stimulating American business in the energy and transportation industries of the 21st century (solar energy, wind energy, and electric transport) is good for the US economy this year, next year, and in the decades to come. (This is one key reason why China, India, and Europe are speeding past us in these fields.)<\/li>\n
- Regulating Wall Street is good for the US economy and US jobs in the long term.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The Republican Party is wholeheartedly against all of those things. Why? Because of irresponsible\u00a0faith in the nonsensical idea that “no government” is the best government.<\/p>\n
Can you actually think of a Republican Party policy that has been definitively shown to help the average American?<\/p>\n
Maybe if we lived in an overly regulated society you could think of one, but our society is dramatically under-regulated.<\/p>\n
Now, where did this long monologue come from? It came from some\u00a0recent media consumption and my continued effort to try to understand why Republicans keep voting against their own interests.<\/p>\n
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