I want to break out my soapbox for a little bit.
The whole discussion of “Republicans voting against their self-interest” is the sort of elitist, condescending, liberal-bubble nonsense that does more to reinforce bad stereotypes of liberals than to actual further any political analysis.
Everyone votes against their own self-interest. Everyone.
Liberals vote to increase their own taxes. Those taxes may fund schools their kids don’t go to. Republicans look at this and roll their eyes, talk about those crazy liberal cities that love taxes. But you know what they tend not to do? Talk about those liberals as if they were a bunch of slow-witted slack-jawed yokels who will someday come to their senses.
There is an understanding that there’s a thinking brain behind these decisions. That the liberals weighed the very tangible and measurable economic self-harm against some ideological greater good they believe they’re working toward.
Where is that understanding on the left, when people on the right vote to cut the social programs they rely on? People on the right also have a concept of the greater good, it’s simply a very different-looking greater good than the one envisioned on the left. When they decide to take a personal hit to do what they believe advances their society, they may consider it a brave and noble act. Then every single liberal they see implies they’re just morons. Way to build bridges, people.
Now, full disclosure. My people don’t come from too far from that pink stripe on Frink’s map. I go camping for a weekend and could easily be mistaken for an extra from Deliverance. I don’t think a whole lot of these voters are going to be lining up to support Kamala Harris in 2020. But some can be convinced, and it’s a start. And it’s not going to be by saying “What’d you go and do that for? I hope you’re happy without your health care, har!” It would be by showing them the better world envisioned by liberal ideals. Yes, yes, I (painfully) realize that most wouldn’t see what’s so much better about a world with so many brown people in it, but some could. And that’s the way forward.