Confusing, the right are the ones advocating for cutting these things?

Yes? At least in the US, the GOP has been working relentlessly for most of my life to reduce welfare, to reduce Medicaid, to make unionization difficult and to neuter existing unions, and most of all, cut taxes on the rich.

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tayo42 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Right, so the idea is that right wing policy of cutting support systems is fueling right wing growth. People are dumb, or this is what they want? Both? Lol Seems weird though

	▲	watersb 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The playbook has been to manipulate "low-information voters" by promising that you will attack a marginalized group of people. Get the voters to believe that you are on their side by echoing the fear and hatred they have for The Enemy. Action against The Enemy replaces any action to directly address economic and social marginalization. It's how we process information. Avoiding this cognitive glitch takes practice.

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georgemcbay 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Confusing, the right are the ones advocating for cutting these things?

This is where the racism comes in. As long as you believe that the social safety net cuts are disproportionally hurting the "other" more than you, you have plenty of space for the cognitive dissonance required to support the cuts even when they are negatively impacting your own situation.

Combine this with the fact that the right has two tiers, one of them made up of wealthy asset owners who politically push for the changes (and benefit from them in the form of extremely low taxes) and the second made up of working class people who can be convinced the changes are good as long it allows them to think those they see as below them will suffer more than they will.

Get yourself a nice feedback loop going in the form of hurting the poor, convincing them the source of their oppression is the "other" to get them to support even more austerity, repeat and you can explain a lot about the politics of much of rural America.

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Herring 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ask a lot of software engineers what they think about European-style salaries and taxes to pay for a welfare state.

	▲	andrewjf 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I would be very happy to do so if we had working infrastructure, education, and health care not coupled to the generosity of your employer. Isn’t it the case anyway that if you add state, federal, local, property, capital gains, and sales taxes, add the money that you and your employer pays for healthcare, that you’re basically paying slightly more in taxes all-in?
	▲	tomrod 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Huh. Most software engineers I come across am at worst ambivalent and at best highly desiring of unions.
	▲	jmye 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		What do you think “welfare state” means? Do you think “European-style” salaries solely occur because “European-style” people, for instance, have a different healthcare system?