Re:Excess mortality across the Western World since the Covid...
by eru on Wednesday June 05, 2024 @12:27AM
(#40581409)
> Every vote you get with non-policy arguments means you can make fractionally more policies to benefit yourself instead of your voter base.
Alas, no. By and large, people don't vote for policies that are good for them.
People vote for policies that sound good. By and large, they don't really care too much about whether the policy sounds good specifically for them---they are happy to think of eg their country or community. But they are really bad at judging what policies actually work.
So to use your phrasing:
Every vote you get with non-policy arguments means you can make fractionally fewer policies constrained by having to keep promises for bad policies.
Alas, no. By and large, people don't vote for policies that are good for them.
People vote for policies that sound good. By and large, they don't really care too much about whether the policy sounds good specifically for them---they are happy to think of eg their country or community. But they are really bad at judging what policies actually work.
So to use your phrasing:
Every vote you get with non-policy arguments means you can make fractionally fewer policies constrained by having to keep promises for bad policies.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter for more background on the argument. (I don't expect my very brief sketch to convince anyone.)