60 Minutes: QAnon's corrosive impact on the U.S.

[wnylib]

11. In general, it's probably true that people

Last edited Mon Feb 22, 2021, 07:34 AM - Edit history (1)

vote party without researching candidates. They also vote personality appeal more than issues. If somebody has personal appeal to them and is from their party, they will also attribute to that person the support for issues that the voter supports. Some candidates will claim support for popular issues but not follow through on them.

In the case of Reagan, I don't think any of his voters needed to research where he stood. His coded language on "American values" was clear to them. He opposed desegregation measures. As Carter put it after Reagan was in office, Reagan made many Americans feel comfortable with their prejudices.

Reagan Democrats were racists who left the Dem party over the Democratic stand for civil rights. But once they did that, and continued to vote for Republicans, they lost the protections for workers' rghts that Dems had offered them. They paid more in taxes to take up the slack from Republican tax cuts for the upper class. They blamed Democrats and minorities because their new party told them that's who was at fault. It never occurred to them that their racism and the party they fled to were the real causes of their problems. They accepted every crackpot conspiracy that was presented to them.