politics

It's only a problem when it affects them

Here's the difference between today's conservatives/Republicans and liberals/Democrats that I think will explain a lot of the whole, "how can they consistently vote against their own interests‽":

As a liberal I saw this article and immediately started asking questions (in my head). I wanted to know the far-reaching effects, unintended consequences, etc. I went to the comments to see some different perspectives--knowing full well there could be some total Nazis commenting as well. Fundamentally, I don't trust politicians statements about things like this. Whether it's a Democrat or a Republican... I want the truth (especially in regards to just who is pushing for any given legislation and what their motives are).

Conservatives/Republicans don't do that. They'll turn to their trusted sources to form their opinions. If their trusted sources are actually trustworthy and weren't pushing some agenda that method would be totally fine. In fact, it used to be totally fine! For a very long time there weren't outrage machines in mass media that exist solely to manipulate people (and we now have one mass media company who was forced to admit under oath that's exactly what they do).

The conservative way of trusting authorities makes a lot of sense! The only problem with it is of course, "who can you trust?" The propagandist's goal is then to convince these people to only trust their messaging. There's a number of ways to manipulate people into this situation such as always being first with your message (humans are hard-wired to trust the first message more than later messages that say something different) and always having rage-inducing reasons as to why any given thing is happening along with scapegoats to blame. This creates something like a hard psychological shell around their version of the message.

The next phase to really lock-in trust of your (completely untrustworthy) authority is conspiracies: Any alternative ideas or messaging must be from "others" who always have an evil agenda. People with power... Come up with boogeymen who may or may not be related to your messaging but have names that most people will recognize but know nothing about. Especially if these people have nothing at all to do with any of it (it makes them more sinister; supposedly inserting their tentacles into other people's lives without good reason).

Now that you've got people to trust you and your messaging you can make them hate whoever you want and by extension, vote however you want. When bad things happen to these people they'll blame your chosen boogeymen (e.g. immigrants, minorities, a particular political party, etc) and certainly not the very people who put them in this position in the first place because they're the saviors; the ones fighting the boogeymen.

Remember that mass media--especially television "news"--is never going to be informative enough to give people all of the information related to any given topic. In fact, the best they will ever do is to give a tiny little slice of the information. A slice, that if chosen properly, can utterly and completely mislead someone to a conclusion that is equally as utterly and completely incorrect.

When you look at the statistics it should become exceedingly clear why Republican women vote the way they do: They put their trust in the wrong sources. Over and over again.

It's always the same story: "How could they do this to me‽ I trusted them!"

When a liberal justice or Democratic politician does something liberals don't like the response from that side of the political isle is always the same as well, "WTF! They're a liar!"

The difference is subtle but it's very important. The liberal/Democrat formed a conclusion based on promises and prior behavior. The opinion of the liberal/Democrat of any given politician or party is based on how they act and what they're claiming to believe in rather than an inherent trust in the individual. The person or party is almost never the authority.

The Democratic party is always infighting. They're very rarely ever 100% in agreement about anything. Because everyone is skeptical and wants to know basically everything that will result from every action. Positions shift and change often because new information could change everything. This makes it difficult to form consensus on anything that hasn't been researched to hell and back.

This is why Democratic primaries are full of politicians referencing statistics and outcomes and Republican primaries are full of politicians making anecdotes and trying to prove that they're on the right side.

When a Republican is voting against their interests it's simply because they trust the authority of the party. Because they truly believe that they're more trustworthy than any alternative. This is also why hypocrisy doesn't really exist in the minds of conservatives/Republicans: The party (and its leaders) are inherently trusted and if they need to change their position it's pretty much always viewed as a mere tactical posture, "for the greater good."