[ElProlactin]

> Get to work enacting a change.

At least in the US, it's questionable as to whether "people" (writ large) really want change deep down inside.

As Kurt Vonnegut wrote:

"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves."

This quote helped me explain why and how average working-class and poor Americans vote for people who think of them as subhuman.

[pdimitar]

Very good quote, thank you. And it seems like propaganda worked on these people.

[ElProlactin]

You're welcome.

But I would add that at this point I'm not sure this is really "propaganda". In my mind, it's more "the culture."

America is a highly individualistic society and always has been. By some measurements, it's the most individualistic society in the world and perhaps the most individualistic nation-state in history.

If you're American, you're basically taught from an early age that anything is possible and that the sky is the limit. You could be born poor and still become one of the world's richest people. Technically, some of these beliefs are true. But they're exaggerated and the end result is that you have a ton of people who devalue things (like, say, universal healthcare) that they come to see as a threat to the lottery ticket they were born with.

To put it in blunt terms, this is how you end up with a poor redneck in West Virginia voting for a foul-mouthed socialite billionaire from New York City. The latter thinks the former is trash; the former thinks under the right circumstances he could have become the latter.