Why, oh why?

Americans Against Themselves by Ronald Dworkin | NYRBlog | The New York Review of Books:

Why do so many Americans insist on voting against their own best interests? Why do they shout hatred for a health care plan that gives them better protection against calamity than they have ever had? Or stimulus spending that has prevented a bad economic climate from being much worse for them? Or tax proposals that lower their own taxes by raising taxes on people much richer than they will ever be? Why do they vote in such numbers for the party favored by the bankers and traders who brought on the economic catastrophe?

Eight out of ten voters told exit pollsters that they are frightened by the economy; four out of ten report that their own families are still worse off than they once were. Columnists say that this explains why they turned on President Obama and deserted the Democrats. But that is not a solution to the puzzle; it is part of it. The economy is improving; private sector jobs are increasing. True, the improvement is slow—no doubt slower than everyone hoped and many people expected. But if someone has burned down your house you would not fire your new contractor because he has not rebuilt it overnight and then hire the arsonist to finish the job.

Why do people vote against their own interests? Ignorance and lies, chiefly. When the press doesn't do its job, instead  feeding softball, inane questions to clearly mendacious grifters, then smiling, and accepting their answers without challenging the evasions, distortions, and outright lies they often get in return the facts people need to identify where their self interest lies get buried in a blizzard of half-truths and gorilla dust.