Materially, it makes little sense for blue-collar workers to vote for Modi, Orban, or Trump, a billionaire whose platform is to cut taxes for the rich. Hitler and Mussolini had their share of support from the poor too.

What are some of the theories of why this happens?

I know scapegoating foreigners for poverty is part of it. Wilhelm Reich wrote The Mass Psychology of Fascism but I haven't read it.

  • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
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    edit-2
    2 years ago

    what reason is there for people to consider that the latter isn’t true?

    If the "bad poors" are nicking all the cash then where's the fucking cash? Their lives suck too.

    I think part of it is the genuinely incomprehensible amount of wealth held by the bourgeois. It looks like those "bad poors" are holding a lot of wealth simply by virtue of the fact that you see a lot of people each holding a comprehensible amount of wealth. "Billion" and "trillion" literally don't parse as "money," they parse as "economy," which is something that happens out there while actual people live our lives out here with 3-digit "money." When it's hard to even wrap our ape brains around individuals hoarding such a vast amount of wealth, it's also hard to really internalize the idea that there's enough for everyone if we just fucking took it from them.

    • spectre [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      They literally quip about "if you want free healthcare and stuff, just cross the border illegally cause the stupid libs will give you whatever you want"

      I think in their mind, they are poor cause all the taxes they pay go to supporting illegal immigrants. It's obviously not very well thought out.

      • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
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        2 years ago

        Imagine if instead of taxes withheld, your paycheck had to list surplus value withheld.

    • Soot [none/use name]
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      2 years ago

      I guess that's generally where news channels say it's going to 'PC nonsense' and 'people who dared to have fifteen kids at taxpayer's expense' and generally 'woke nonsense' and being spent on drugs or something.

      I obviously agree with whatcha say, and I think you're right about the confounding factors when it comes to comprehending money.

      • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
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        2 years ago

        Oh yeah, the machine works 24/7/365 to convince people their eyes are lying to them.