(Originally posted on the 10th July 2009)
I was listening to a podcast from the Commonwealth Club of California the other day.
The podcast was a talk from Michael Moore on his work and films upto and including his new film 'Capitalism: a love story'.
Something was said during this that made me think of the question 'Why would someone vote for a politician whose policies are going to harm you'?
At the time I was thinking of the impending disaster of having a Conservative government in this country (something that appears to be all but inevitable at the moment when the General Election comes around next year), and the fact that a large number of poorer people in this country will end up voting for them, not because their policies will make these people better off (infact it is likely to be the exact opposite) but because the Conservative party are seen as the most likely party to 'kick out' the current 'New Labour' government as they are doing such a bad job of running the country at the moment.
This thought lead me to an analogy comparing this to a person who is allergic to nuts.
For someone who is allergic to nuts, it doesn't matter how attractive the packaging the nuts come in is, it doesn't matter how tasty the nut manufacturer claims the nuts are, it doesn't matter how glitzy the TV adverts are, if they eat those nuts it could kill them, so they wouldn't eat the nuts, would they?
The same idea can be applied to politicians. If doesn't matter how smartly dressed or nice they look, it doesn't matter how convincing their PR teams or adverts and party political broadcasts are, if doesn't matter how good a speaker or narrator they are, if their party's policies are going to harm you (either financially or in terms of your quality of life or some other way) you're not going to vote for them, are you?
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