I have reasons to vote for Harris and I could state them and you would not be surprized. I have some ideas that the Trump folks and MAGA would consider radical. But worldwide, they would not be. Most people in the Western world allow a role for the federal governmnet in our lives. Only those that were convinced by Reagan 40 years ago that "all government regulation is bad" stick to the pure free market idea of the world.
The undecided voters do not think about politics much. They have jobs, daily lives, social media and friends that take up their entire day. They are now faced with an election. What they decide may not be easy to explain. And they may not know why they voted one or the other. Many decisions are unconscious. Here is a summary of Tversky and Kahneman conclusions. Our decisions are not entirely rational.
Social psychologists and political science academics have studied the thinking of different types of people. The MAGA folk fall into a category that believes in hard work and may be quite normal and reasonable in their interactions with other people. It is only when politics comes up that their beliefs come up. They may not be able to explain them well, but George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling have labeled it "strict father morality." High taxes are seen as an immoral punishment of self discipline and a threat to economic competition. They actually believe that the system is fair and that anybody could become Elon Musk. The fact that there is almost no social mobility anymore and that most of them are stuck in the lower middle class forever is not clear to them. They believe in the American Dream of some 50 years ago, post WWII. The blind belief in "fee hand of capitalism" leads to pure capitalism being the ideal economy. That allows them to ignore the fact that the GOP will eliminate Social Security and Medicare.
They see abortion in this same frame. If you are not able to take care of disabled child, you should not have strarted a family. Abortion never comes up as an option to them. If a baby dies at childbirth, that was God's will. If the mother dies, that is the same.
The concepts of freedom that they have and we have are not the same. The freedom may be strictly based on their morals and some of that is definitely the JD Vance type of stuff. Very extreme individualism but then odd views of society.
The low information voter could also be one with no real poltical views. A person like this is quite dependent on their peers. belonging to a group is most important in life, and they will follow the leader of whatever group or community they are in.
All these factors lead me to believe that there are people in the MAGA camp simply because a family member is a hard core MAGA supporter. But when faced with the erratic behavior of Trump and the future of the country in the game, they may choose now to not support Trump himself. They can hang on to some MAGA principles but not show up to vote at all. Those are people that leave Trump rallies before they are over.
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