Why do poorer areas, in Salem and elsewhere, vote against their own interests?

Laurel and I picked a great weekend to visit my daughter, Celeste, and her family for the first time in Laguna Niguel, California, where they moved the rea few months ago.

The late November weather was in the 80's. The sky was clear and sunny.

Here we are in a triple-selfie -- Laurel, Celeste, me -- enjoying the nearby Dana Point beach, where bikini-clad southern Californians defied the calendar (I guess there were men on the beach also, but I didn't notice them).

Soon after we landed at the Orange County Airport and reached the Laguna Niguel area I started to repeat what would be an oft-stated mantra to my daughter and her family: Everything looks so perfect here. 

The streets are broad, smoothly paved, litter-free. There aren't any tacky billboards or other large signs. The architecture of both homes and businesses flows together beautifully. Almost everybody is well-dressed, attractive, and fit. There's even a more lightly-traveled toll-freeway for those with disposable cash who want to avoid the rush hour crush on I-405.

Also, the residents are mostly white. And well-to-do.

Driving around, I didn't see one homeless person. Nor did we encounter anyone asking for money. This part of southern California struck me as almost eerily perfect, given a certain definition of that word, "perfect." 

But getting into that subject would lead me astray from the point of this post. Which is that it is completely understandable why Orange County in general, and the area where my daughter's family lives in particular, would lean strongly Republican. 

Life is good there.

The average cost of a nice, but not extravagant, house seems to be around a million dollars. Lots of good-looking people are out and about shopping, dining, recreating. The bird of the American dream has come to roost in Laguna Niguel and the even-more-chic artsy oceanside town of Laguna Beach.

So why not vote for the politicians who promise to keep taxes low and government small? Most people here have plenty of money. They aren't dependent on social programs -- aside from the retired folks who push away the reality of how Medicare works.

But why would people in much less affluent areas vote Republican against their own interests?

This is a perplexing question. I've thought that the reason lay in social issues such abortion and same-sex marriage, where firmly-held religious/moral beliefs trump a voter's economic and other interests.

However, a New York Times story, "Who Turned My Blue State Red?: Why Poor Areas Vote for Politicians Who Want to Slash the Safety Net," casts a different light on this issue. It looks like the working poor are more irked at the non-working or barely-working poor than they are at the GOP's wildly excessive tilt toward the interests of the 1%.

It is one of the central political puzzles of our time: Parts of the country that depend on the safety-net programs supported by Democrats are increasingly voting for Republicans who favor shredding that net.

...In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.

...The people in these communities who are voting Republican in larger proportions are those who are a notch or two up the economic ladder — the sheriff’s deputy, the teacher, the highway worker, the motel clerk, the gas station owner and the coal miner. And their growing allegiance to the Republicans is, in part, a reaction against what they perceive, among those below them on the economic ladder, as a growing dependency on the safety net, the most visible manifestation of downward mobility in their declining towns.

...I’ve heard variations on this theme all over the country: people railing against the guy across the street who is collecting disability payments but is well enough to go fishing, the families using their food assistance to indulge in steaks. 

Though Salem, Oregon, where I live, isn't really a poor area, or a "red city," some of the same dynamics are playing out here. 

People in the wealthier parts of town -- south and west Salem -- both lean conservative and vote at a considerably higher rate than the lower income, more liberal people in other areas.

This is a big reason why a recent vote on a ballot measure to impose a very small (.21%, one fifth of a percent) payroll tax on Salem businesses failed.

Salam is the only city of its size in the Northwest that doesn't 'have evening or weekend bus service. The payroll tax would have restored these services, making it much easier for people without a car to get about (including getting to their jobs) outside of 9-5 Monday-Friday.

This wasn't a radical proposal. Cities to our north and south, Portland and Eugene, impose a much higher payroll tax on businesses to fund decent mass transit.

But the measure failed for a couple of reasons: the Salem Chamber of Commerce funded a sleazy anti-payroll tax campaign filled with falsities and half-truth; and voter turnout was very low. Apparently the lower income people without cars who would benefit most from improved bus service didn't bother to turn in their ballots in this off-year election. 

Those opposed to the payroll tax implied (both explicitly and implicitly) that users of the Cherriots bus system were undeserving: out of work, not paying their way, lazy, undeserving feeders at the public trough. The reality, of course, is much different. 

People ride the bus for a wide variety of reasons: personal, financial, environmental, health.

Mass transit benefits the entire community, yet Salem's right-wingers argued that only those who use mass transit should pay for it -- an obviously absurd notion that would mean only families with children should pay for public education.

So the New York Times story appears to point to widespread political truths. 

That pattern is right in line with surveys, which show a decades-long decline in support for redistributive policies and an increase in conservatism in the electorate even as inequality worsens. There has been a particularly sharp drop in support for redistribution among older Americans, who perhaps see it as a threat to their own Social Security and Medicare.

Meanwhile, researchers such as Kathryn Edin, of Johns Hopkins University, found a tendency by many Americans in the second lowest quintile of the income ladder — the working or lower-middle class — to dissociate themselves from those at the bottom, where many once resided.

“There’s this virulent social distancing — suddenly, you’re a worker and anyone who is not a worker is a bad person,” said Professor Edin. “They’re playing to the middle fifth and saying, ‘I’m not those people.’ ”

Comments

[Eric MacKnight]

Along these same lines, Brian, Jim Webb's "Born Fighting," about the Scots-Irish and their influence on American politics and culture, is a must-read.

[HarryVanderpool]

Well now brother Brian, and you know I love you like a brother; there's a problem.
You state that Salem voters vote against their own self interest?
The problem is that you haven't the slightest, foggiest, teency-encey-weencyist clue what the majority of Salem citizen's self interest is!
That is how far you are detached from the fine citizenry of Salem and Marion County in my opinion.
One example:
You support the current routing of HWY 22 through the downtown core of Salem.
At the same time, you want to narrow and further restrict traffic through town!!???
4 lanes of intra-state commercial traffic, commuters and tourists entering Salem from East and West, DUMPING dead center in our town. You support that.
Worse, you seek to further restrict traffic lanes!!!!???
Do you drive a heavy truck as part of your business? If so, how many of them are in your fleet?
You are detached!
Salem voters vote in their self interest, not yours.
I do agree with your angst over the 3rd bridge.
But only because it should connect HWY 22 east and west, right around our town, 55mph with no intersections.
I would vote for that. It is in my own self interest and all others in business.
For those that just drive a mini, not so much....

[Brian Hines]

Harry, I don't support the current three lanes of traffic through downtown. Front Street is the state highway. The City of Salem doesn't control this state highway, which connects to the current bridges across the Willamette and bypasses downtown.

I'd like to see Court and State streets reduced to two lanes, preferably two-way with two lanes. Commercial and Liberty streets probably also should be reduced to two lanes in the downtown area past Ferry Street.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that I want more traffic downtown. I want less, with more people walking and cycling.

[Salemander]

Brian I think that the Cherriots brand has become toxic and is forever associated with waste, mismanagement, overspending, and government unaccountability. Why? Because they will always be connected with one of the greatest symbols of government waste in this city- the Courthouse Square and its resulting fiasco.

A lack of oversight. Poor planning. The ability to magically come up with the needed millions for pet projects by a supposedly strapped government. The lack of anyone in charge being held accountable (mostly due to the governing by committee and passing the buck). Throwing more good money after bad. These are all thoughts typically associated with courthouse square, and Cherriots too, whether it is deserved or not.

I do not know of anyone in town that is proud of the building or has any positive associations with it. But for many -next to empty busses rumbling though town- courthouse square is what symbolizes and represents Cherriots. Which makes supporting them a bitter pill to swallow.

How do they fix it? I don't know. You can't unscrew the pooch. Maybe time and hoping the association will fade from the public's memory. But until then that building will be the millstone of Cherriot's own making tied around their neck pulling them down, forever tainting and poisioning the public's perception of them.

[Jack Holloway]

Brian --

Anyone who really wants to understand why poorer Americans vote Republican needs to look into the richly informative, and highly entertaining essays of the brilliant Joe Bageant ("Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball," "Deer Hunting With Jesus," etc).

Joe is, sadly, no longer grousing among us, but his essays are archived, here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150325192155/http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/05/lost-on.html

Joe grew up among the folks that are under discussion here. He understands them very well and, although he very much regrets their voting habits, he has compassion for such folk, and for the life conditions that made them what they are.

Take a look. I guarantee you that you will be glad that you did. You will be both entertained and informed.

[Yothisismicah]

"People in the wealthier parts of town -- south and west Salem -- both lean conservative and vote at a considerably higher rate than the lower income, more liberal people in other areas."

I think that line answers the question: the left is not mobilized in Salem. Especially in off year elections that sees the ownership class exerts its influence and mobilizes its ideological adherents.

I think there is an apathy with the 2 party system that plays into this as well. Many working class and poor (rightfully) see both parties as unconcerned with their class interests and as a result are not motivated to vote. A stronger effort at organizing these communities in the only chance we have at countering the ownership class' influence and control of our city.

[HarryVanderpool]

WOW!!!
Brian said:
"Harry, I don't support the current three lanes of traffic through downtown. Front Street is the state highway."
HUH?!!!
HWY 22 comprises, Front, Ferry, Trade, Bellevue, 12th & Mission St.
HWY 22 crosses Commercial, Liberty, High, Church, Cottage and Winter St.
Go to google maps and zoom in.
Hwy 22 through Salem is a DISASTER.
Until that problem is solved correctly (in the citizens best interest), every thing else discussed is just dreaming.