Thread.
Q: “Republicans enact policies that hurt their own constituents.
So why do people vote for them?”
A: It has to do with the purpose of government.
For some people, purpose of government is to help people. We think fairness is possible and the government's job is to create fairness.
Others have a different view.
They think there’s a natural order: Some people belong on top; others at the bottom.
They think people with money and power deserve their money and power.
1/
Example: The white supremacy theories that informed the Confederacy.
Hierarchy people don’t believe equality is possible because they don’t think people are equal.
They think the purpose of government is to allocate power and maintain the hierarchy.
When a government helps people, they think the government is taking from the “makers” and giving to the undeserving.
When people lower than them on the hierarchy demand equality, they think those people want to “replace” them.
2/
19th century America was a strict hierarchy (specifically, a patriarchy) with White men at the top and Black women at the bottom. Black women literally didn’t own their own bodies.
White women were kept out of the professions which kept them dependent on men, which gave men control over them.
19th-century laws reinforced the hierarchy.
Rape laws preserved the hierarchy and were designed to protect (white) men from false accusations, they weren't designed to protect women from attack.
3/
I moved to @law-and-politics
mjfuhlhage
Laurie Bruno