Why people vote the way they do

I read the polls and I also see very educated men and women along with very poor men and women, both of which, support the Republican agenda. If you're not white and rich I don't see how the Republican plan for more tax cuts for the rich, support for big business, big pharma and big oil could possibly benefit you.

In a recent WSJ poll, Mitt Romney got 0% of the African American vote. Those results are unprecedented. I really love it when Republicans say that "all" black people support Barack Obama just because he's black.  NOT true! Although we are proud to have an African American President (well 1/2 African American anyway), the bigger reason that a majority of black people support Barack Obama is -- because supporting the current Republican platform would mean we would be voting against our interest.  We aren't dumb!

Consider this latest episode with Todd Akin and his plight to take away women’s rights (the Republican plan which has passed in the Republican House will force 32,000 women each year to have their rapists' children).  77% of all Americans believe abortion should NOT be illegal but in recent polls Romney is edging out Obama among women voters 46% to 43% (last month Obama led) WTF is this about???

If a bunch of middle age white guys in government were sitting around legislating my reproductive rights, forcing me to have the baby of a rapist and ordering random scans of my vijay jay, I would be out of that party so fast it would make your head spin!

Paul Ryan recently told an audience of seniors that Obama’s health care law “puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of Medicare who are required to cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors.”  Of course it's NOT true! OMG fact check this crap people!

My question is, WHY in the world would a woman support this candidate and this party, and, why do working class and rural Americans usually vote for the pro-business Republicans whose agenda will cut the very programs they so desperately need to survive when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? 

To put it simply --  
W H Y do people vote against their own interest?? 

This had me so puzzled that I had to do some research!

Here’s what I found – BTW this information is the product of research and not partisan political spin. I will attach the link at the conclusion for your review

Life's Extremes: Democrat vs. Republican

Adam Hadhazy, LiveScience Contributor

Date: 18 December 2011

According to early poll results from psychology and neuroscience, science has suggested that there are key features in the brains of liberals and conservatives — bywords, respectively, for Democrats and Republicans these days — that might help explain why people think and vote the way they do.

Studies of the brains of self-identified liberals and conservatives have yielded some consistent trends.

Liberals tend to have more activity in parts of the brain known as the insula and anterior cingulate cortex. These two regions which overlap to an extent by dealing with cognitive conflict,in the insula's case, while the anterior cingulate helps in processing conflicting information.

Photo Source

Conservatives, on the other hand, have demonstrated more activity in the area (amygdala) known as the brain's "fear center." on average the amygdala is bigger in conservatives, likely indicating greater use of it in neurological processing. In contrast, liberals often possessed larger anterior cingulate cortexes.

These findings suggest liberals can more easily tolerate uncertainty, which might be reflected in their shades-of-gray policy positions.  In the U.S., those typically include being pro-choice and lenient on illegal immigration.

Altogether, Conservatives, meanwhile, have a more binary view of threats versus non-threats. Again, such a predisposition could be extended to policy positions, such as being pro-life and stricter on the immigration issue. 

 People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world. Source 

The study doesn’t go as far as saying that we are hardwired politically but research in different countries has dovetailed in showing that at most around 40 percent of political ideology is heritable.


Genetic and environment studies have suggested that political attitudes are forged more through experience than some innate tendency.  More than half of one's ideological influences come from life as it is lived, and not in the manner of "programmed" traits, such as height or eye color.

Source

Oh, but I didn't find anything in my research to explain why this current group of Republicans "just make stuff up".

I'm Just Sayin!