• protist@mander.xyz
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    4 months ago

    This is absolutely not the case. When you break issues down, the average Republican voter supports a ton of Democratic policies, especially economic policies. They’re willing to vote against their self-interest because they’ve been led to believe they’re superior to other groups, namely racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, non-Christians, but most importantly “college educated liberal elites.” This feeling of superiority is a fucking drug, and it makes them ready to want whatever their leaders tell them to want rather than the other way around

    • TTH4P@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      It’s easy to get what you want from your party when you want whatever they tell you to want…

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Or sometimes it’s the other way around. I have friends who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal Republicans. They just ignore the racism and bigotry in favor of better financial options for their business. It’s loathsome.

        • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          They absolutely leave plenty of tax loopholes for larger enterprise and want to keep capital gains tax as low as possible. That’s all they seem to care about when I ask why they vote the way they do.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            That’s not fiscal responsibility. Cutting the federal income without cutting federal expenses is irresponsible bullshit that wins them popularity contests with the greedy, but it leaves huge messes to be cleaned up later. That’s why we’re $35 trillion dollars in debt. Fiscal responsibility is balancing the freaking budget. This is very basic stuff, and yet it’s completely lost on millions of people.

            • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              They’ve said they’re fiscally conservative, meaning they support low taxation and limited redistribution through social programs. They’re referring to their own income, not the federal budget. It’s a selfish economic mindset in my opinion.

              • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                And it’s not good for them, either. It’s horribly short-sighted. When the middle class and poor have money, it’s so much easier to make money. When all the money coalesces into very few hands, it gets harder to make money and everything grinds to a halt.

                You can see this in things like free to play games. Chasing low amounts of money from a large amount of people isn’t as good as chasing whales. The poors who don’t spend money are there to entertain the whales. This model works because our economy is broken.

                Democrats are better for the economy. Democrats are better fiscal conservatives. Democrats are better for the rich (measured in decades).

                • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  That’s absolutely correct, however in my experience it seems most people ignore or forgot what they learned in high school economics. Our society has such a short attention span that half the nation seems to have forgotten how bad Trump’s last presidency was.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        I don’t believe there is such a thing as being “fiscally conservative and socially liberal.” Any time I hear someone say that, I assume they are full of shit and vote Republican, but don’t want someone to think they’re a POS.

        • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          They’re real alright. They’re the only NY Republicans I can tolerate conversing with. They’re all for race/sex/gender rights on an interpersonal level, but they just don’t care enough to use their vote to support them. They only seem to care about their own income at the polls.

            • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Totally. I’ve know them since high school, so were very honest with each other. I call them sell outs and they call me a bleeding heart.

          • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            But that’s exactly the point the person you’re replying to was making; Republicans are terrible for small businesses. So unless your friends are the Waltons, they’re voting against themselves.

            • Serinus@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              You know the single best thing we could do for small business and entrepreneurship?

              I’ll give you a hint. If you’re going to run your own business as an adult, what’s the first consideration? Particularly if you have kids. It usually involves your spouse and what they do for work.

              Universal healthcare.

              It’s the biggest burden on entrepreneurship, so much so that you generally need a spouse to have benefits. And it’s a huge burden on small and medium businesses.

              The major groups against universal healthcare include large corporations, because it’s another barrier to entry for competition, both in their market and for potential employees. Unions are against it because healthcare is one of the free things they’ve negotiated for. And of course the healthcare industry doesn’t want the money sink to dry up.

              • androogee (they/she)@midwest.social
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                4 months ago

                Yep. Investing in our citizenry is the most fiscally responsible thing we could do.

                There’s nothing conservative about greed. Nothing at all. Just another Republican lie.

              • theneverfox@pawb.social
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                4 months ago

                Absolutely. Tying healthcare to work is insane, and it definitely hits new businesses the hardest

                Going further along the same lines, UBI plus removing the minimum wage would be jet fuel for businesses, especially small ones

                People like to work. They’d do it even if all their needs were met already. It’s not a hypothetical - people who have more than enough often keep going until age catches up with them. It gives social status and purpose, we’re wired to create or to help others.

                What people don’t like is to be exploited or mistreated. Many people would happily work with little or no additional pay to build something as a group, so long as their conditions are good and they share in the success

                The threat of poverty not only stifles innovation and societal progress, it’s by far the largest stressor for most people. Removing it would make people less exploitable, but also make them healthier and more productive

                • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  UBI plus removing the minimum wage

                  There are more ways for this to go wrong than right.

                  • theneverfox@pawb.social
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                    4 months ago

                    It’s not as simple as “cut a check and you’re done” - this is assuming the UBI is enough for basic needs, and by that I mean decent housing, utilities (including Internet), healthy food, etc

                    Obviously, if you give everyone money tomorrow, companies would just squeeze everyone harder. Housing especially - done wrong it could just all go into the pockets of landlords

                    But I think it’s a self reinforcing structure and a solid goal. If we limited the commodisation of housing and continued pushing the FTC in the current direction until it’s regularly breaking up tech and financial giants who go too far, I think in a couple decades the playing field would have shifted enough that we wouldn’t instantly backslide

                    I don’t think it’s the best end goal or ideal method to get there, but it seems like the most achievable one. It plays into the myths of capitalism, it still allows for obscene wealth, and it keeps the game going (hopefully) meaning it’s a feasible step without tearing everything down and attempting to build a new system all at once

            • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              It’s true there isn’t much of a middle class any more, but there are still many people in NY with a high 6-figure income that absolutely benefit financially from Republican economies.

              When I made that kind of money, I absolutely paid less in taxes under Republicans. I still voted blue because I believe society has a responsibility to support its most vulnerable members, and I’m a huge advocate for civil rights.

              • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                But that’s not “fiscally conservative”, which is the way conservatives like to frame it. The policy they support is, “Put debt on my children so I can have a better lifestyle today.”

                Conservative fiscal policy has historically been about running up the debt.

                The Democrat party is the party of fiscal conservative / socially liberal.

                • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 months ago

                  Exactly. Republicans say that tax cuts skewed towards the rich are “fiscally conservative”.

                  If I told my spouse that I was going to take money out of our kids’ college savings accounts and give it to us instead so we could go to Disneyland, she wouldn’t respond “why that’s awfully fiscally conservative of you there, jballs.”

                  She’d call me a fucking idiot. Because Republicans are fucking idiots.