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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis is why Republicans don't want more people voting.
It's not just about hating poor people and ethnic and racial minorities, although there's obviously a strong element of that. It's what higher levels of voter registration and turnout among poor people and ethnic and racial minorities would mean in terms of public policy.
Nonvoters are more liberal than voters
This class bias is a persistent feature of American voting: A study of 40 years of state-level data finds no instance in which there was not a class bias in the electorate favoring the richin other words, no instance in which poorer people in general turned out in higher rates than the rich. That being said, class bias has increased since 1988, just as wide gaps have opened up between the opinions of non-voters and those of voters.
Recent research tells us that this voting disparityin class and in opinionhas tremendous impact on policy. State-level research suggests that higher voter turnout among the poor leads to higher welfare spending. A 2013 study found that turnout inequality directly predicts minimum wages, childrens health insurance spending and anti-predatory lending policies. And studies at the state level have found that a higher class bias in the electorate actually leads to higher levels of income inequality.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-113997
Wounded Bear
(58,653 posts)Higher voter turnout leads to Democratic victory.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)And if they voted (or rather, were able to vote) consistently.
None of this is a coincidence.
ymetca
(1,182 posts)where Timmy, the rich kid with all the cool toys, won't share. So all the other poorer kids call Timmy out on it, and Timmy gets scared and runs away. Now Timmy has no friends, but he loves his toys, and even though he knows deep down inside that sharing his toys will get him friends, his toys allow him to live comfortably and not have to face them with humble apology. So while all the poor kids are begrudgingly getting along with each other and what little they have, Timmy keeps amassing more toys.
Soon Timmy lives in a gilded cage of his own comforts. But now those comforts are taking more and more away from those who never had much to begin with. They were willing to let Timmy live in his own world as long as he didn't start taking what little they had left, but now that Timmy wants more and more to fill the hole in his heart that none of those toys can ever fill, he is becoming a real threat to the survival of the rest.
So Timmy gets himself "elected" President, and declares he's going to "Make America great again."
Poor, poor Timmy. He has no idea what is coming.