18 August, 2018

Birth of a “Troll Nation”: Amanda Marcotte on how and why conservatives embraced the dark side

I think there is a lot of political science that shows that people recognize that they’re getting benefits from the government, and they will actually throw that out the window if their cultural resentments push them in that direction. You see that a lot with Obamacare. A lot of people started to acknowledge that Obamacare made their lives better, but they're willing to get rid of it if they can punish black people. I wish that wasn’t true. I don’t know how to get around that problem.
I think a lot of people who make these economic arguments are underestimating how important culture is to people -- how much self-esteem men get from male dominance or white people get from white dominance. We go, “That’s not real,” not in the way that money is real or health care is real. But actually, people feel it’s very real to them. I think we would be in error if we didn’t think about that and take that seriously.