Jason McDaniel and Sean McElwee — The scary truth about inequality: Why the GOP has little reason to reconsider its dangerous politics

These results should lead progressives to reconsider the importance of race as a motivating factor on attitudes related to a wide swath of policy issues. Indeed, consideration of race should be central to analysis of even issues, like economic inequality, that seem to not be about race. But further, they show that the idea that Republicans will ever go so far to the right that Americans will reject them is unlikely. The sad reality is that most Americans don’t see a large causal connection between government policy and their lived experiences. Instead, they’ll likely blame the poor, immigrants and blacks.…

The only good thing about these results is that it puts to bed the assumption that as a general rule, humans rationally pursue utility economically. This explains why American regularly vote against their economic interests. Are resentment and ignorance rational?

Salon
The scary truth about inequality: Why the GOP has little reason to reconsider its dangerous politics

Jason McDaniel, Assistant Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, and Sean McElwee is a Salon contributor and a research associate at Demos
ht Brad DeLong