Why don’t people vote in their best interest?

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So why is it, a recent BBC article asked, that people don’t vote for their interests? For much of the developed world, that very question has been asked again and again in the last year as the U.S. has entrenched itself in the quagmire of the health care reform debate. Why, as the BBC asks “are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?”

Good question. How is it that those opposed to health care reform have been so successful in convincing people who need it that they don’t? According to George Lakoff, cognitive scientist and author of The Political Mind, it’s all about narratives. In essence, Lakoff argues, the right is more adept at taking advantage of constructed narratives and forcing their opposition to argue not, say, for their own position, but for their position within that narrative. He argues that if reason (in the way it was conceived during the Enlightenment) is literal and based on the “rational structure of reality,” then it

…[C]annot recognize conservative language and concepts at their face value. If conservatives say there is a ‘war on terror,’ those following the neoliberal mode of thought will repeat ‘war on terror’ and argue within the conservative frame. They may argue against conservative policy, but if they stay within the frame, they are activating and reinforcing the frame rather than challenging it and replacing it.

And these narratives are commonly associated with the ones we construct in our brains, and are familiar to us culturally, not just personally. Lakoff says, “We live our narratives. The lived story is at the center of modern personality theory. The theory of neural computation… shows how our brains not only permit this, but favor it…”

But it also seems to work the other way – that is, not always in favour of the right or conservatives. Shortly after Obama’s win in November, 2008, Daniel Gross pointed out at Slate that even though Obama had pledged to tax the rich (those making more than $250,000 a year), wealthy Americans still voted for him. Strange, no?

As it turns out, Lakoff accidentally explains that, too. One of the narratives he describes is that of the Helper, who takes part in the Rescue narrative. He explains it like this:

The characters are: the Hero, the Victim, the Villain, the Helpers. The Hero is inherently good; the Villain is inherently bad. […] A president may see himself as a Hero rescuing a Victim-nation from a Villain-dictator.

And the Helpers? They’re the ones who aid the Hero in the conquest of the Villain. In this case, they were voters – some of them rich – who aided in Obama’s cause, even if it meant taking a financial hit. In effect, he appealed to their altruism, or more simply perhaps, their empathy (if we want to think about it in a slightly less grandiose manner).

Yesterday, in the first part of his interview with Bill O’Reilly, Jon Stewart openly recognized the current narrative-versus-narrative issue. Stewart spoke of Obama’s approach to the Senate, and criticized him for treating Congress like an equal branch of government – that Obama wasn’t taking charge. O’Reilly asked, “So he’s too much of a team player?” Stewart replied,

“It allows too much room for different narratives to take hold. For instance, a narrative that might emanate from… from a news organization… Without making a strong case to the public, you have no leverage…”

So in the case of health care reform, Obama has failed to break the Republican/right wing narrative, and instead has decided to operate within it. His starting point was already, as some have pointed out, flawed.

During his election, Obama was successful in constructing the idea that, as a group, Americans could change their country – something somewhat contrary to the idea now posited by groups like the Tea Partiers, who demand autonomy, and as an example, don’t want large, federal group decisions to affect their choice of health care (if they have one). What they fail to realize is that their personal success – that which they feel will be stolen from the “Marxist” elements of the Obama administration – was actually made possible by a centralized government that did things like making sure people could work for a livable wage, or that guarded against monopolies.

But those kinds of details often exist outside of the current political framework, or the narrative that has been constructed over the last quarter-century or so. Until there is a wider acceptance of those kinds of limitations on the national conversation, politicians will continue to operate as-is, and voters will continue to support some legislation that appears, from an outsider’s perspective, to be completely against their interests.