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Voters have realized that government's main purpose is no longer protecting people's individual rights. Govt has moved into the business of favoring one group over another. With this change, it has begun imposing its rules and restrictions based not on the complete equality demanded by the Constitution, but on constantly-changing standards of "deserving". Such as whether they are minorities, whether they are in unions, whether they own land where the snail darter or spotted owl lives, whether they are poor, etc. (Needless to say, people who have earned and saved a lot of money, are at the bottom of this "favored-group" list.)
So, many of those voters have inserted another qualification on whom they will vote for, for President. Their preferred candidate must be one who will favor them above others.
Since such selfish (and even larcenous) desires are not socially acceptable, they couch it in innocent-sounding phrases such as "I want a candidate who understands me", or "I want a candidate who sympathizes with the problems I am facing".
Back when government's only functions were national defense, coining money, setting standards, dealing with foreign nations, prosecuting certain crimes etc., such "sympathizing" was unnecessary. People tended to vote for the candidate they thought could handle the actual, legitimate functions of government better. And they tended to vote for stern, fatherly figures such as George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland etc. Leaders whom they thought would enforce the laws impartially and deal with challenges sternly and with some degree of integrity.
But now, government's main function has changed. It spends more and more time and money (especially money) trying to relieve you of the everyday problems in your own personal life (distributing health care, controlling the people around you and regulating what they built, what they sold you, what they said in your hearing, planning your retirement savings for you, deciding for you what your children could eat in school, and generally saving you from your own follies and mistakes). And as a result, more and more voters have now decided that it is more important to have a President they can count on to favor them, more than he favors people not like them.
So we're getting candidates who fight to "give" them health care based on how much they need rather than how hard they work to pay for what they get. Candidates who favor those who "need more", over those who managed to provide their own without the assistance of government. And those candidates get voted for more often than candidates who promise to make sure nobody stops you from earning enough to pay for your own health care. Same for candidates who promise to get you into college due to your skin color or national origin, over candidates who promise to make sure you have the same (and no more) chance to get into college regardless of your skin color... but leave it up to you to pay for it yourself.
Back when such matter were none of government's business, there was no point in voting for the more "sympathetic" candidate. And people would even wonder what kind of slippery trick you were trying to pull if you wanted someone who promised to make sure a pound of grain would weigh more at your mill than at the next town's mill... weights and measures being one of the few legitimate functions of government the candidate would actually be able to influence, in obedience to the Constitution.
And people's response to these governments whose main job is to hand out favors, as they have always responded to socialistic governments throughout history (including govts with those characteristics long before the term "socialism" was invented). Even the people with personal integrity, who wanted to stick to the old rules of actual fairness and impartiality, have started to see that it is now a losing gambit. If they don't try to sway government into favoring them more than their neighbor, they will simply find government favoring them far less and oppressing them even more.
And so, one by one, honest people gradually release their fealty toward stern, impartial govenment that stays out of their lives. And one by one, they throw in their lot with the people already trying to cadge more favors from government, whether in the name of "making reparations for the wrongs done by previous generations" or "providing health care to those who don't have it (itself a misleading lie)". And they do their best to vote for the candidate who (they will righteously tell you) "understands my own plight a little better" or "sympathizes for people in my particular position". Of course, these are both phrases that boil down to "he will do more good things for me, and relax the regulations a little more for me, than he will for the other guy."
Some people wonder why politicians pushing such favoritism, get so many votes. One explanation sometimes offered, is "voter fraud".
But in a sense, voter fraud isn't just fraud perpetrated AGAINST voters. There's another kind: The subtle fraud perpetrated BY voters against their fellow men, in an attempt to get government "on my side and not on your side".
And though subtle, this other kind of fraud is the most pernicious in the long run, since it causes the remaining fair, upright voters to abandon, one by one, their dedication to truly impartial government, and go over to supporting corruptible, me-over-you government.
And as more people go over to this corruptible, me-over-you government, this puts more pressure on the remaining (and now dwindling) individual citizens who were trying to play fair and maintain their integrity, to give up that integrity, and follow.
Many of the people pushing for big government "helping" people, don't intend for society to deteriorate, of course.
But the fact is, that is the inevitable result, when govt tries to "help" people:
1.) It turns into a pushing and shoving match, trying to get govt to help you more than it helps the other guy;
2.) Hardworking people who don't want govt favor, are persuaded one after the other to give up and seek favor anyway. While NO people are ever persuaded to go the other way. The result is a slow slide into dependence, with no particular urge to stop.
We are seeing the United States slide down this path, at an ever-increasing rate. Where people used to vote for Presidents based on how well they would defend the coutry, enforce our laws, and protect our rights, now the President's most ardent supporters crow over how popular he is, what a nice guy he is, and how "unfeeling" the opposing candidates were.
It is a sea change we can ill afford to ignore, and even less afford to indulge in. But is it one that can still be reversed?
People used to vote for stern, fatherly figures who would enforce the laws fairly and impartially - Grover Cleveland, Abraham Lincoln, etc.
Now they vote the the guy "who understands my problems" - code words for "I think he will favor me and my groups, more than other people."
When was the last time you picked a tree-trimmer based on "how well he understands my situation", rather than "how good a job he does trimming trees"?
But your vote for President might well be based on how well you think he understands your personal situation, rather than how well he sets up departments to enforce voting laws or how well he picks generals for the armed forces... because, now that the govt is doing so much that directly affects how you relate to your doctor or how pretty and aesthetic your workplace is, and those things impact you more directly and immediately than that other, "boring" govt stuff, you naturally gravitate more toward the nice guy that toward the effective guy.
Which is another reason why the President (and the rest of his government) should simply keep their hands off EVERYTHING in your personal life.
Good luck finding a politician willing to so restrict his duties, though. They know where the money - and the votes - are. And they, in turn, are far more interested in money and votes, than in obeying the restrictions in some musty, 200-year-old document that few voters have even read, much less respected.
And there was a civil war because Lincoln was voted in, instead of one who was to provide them the favors.
No, there was a civil war because some people wanted slavery and others wanted NO slavery.
Nice try at diverting the subject.
Where you you keep getting all these strange non sequitors?
Back to the subject:
Modern liberalism is bad for countries that try it, because it causes honest people who wanted to pull their own weight, to give up that desire and start cadging favors from government instead. They didn't quit their jobs en masse when a liberal got elected. But one by one, they started seeing that doing the right thing, just put them farther behind as government worked to "help" others at their expense. And so they eventually slacked off.
We are seeing that happen more and more, today in the U.S., as it has happened in countries like the USSR and, more lately, Greece.
It's a small part of it, but it's definitely a part.
Hard to tell which came first here, the chicken or the egg. But the slide into me-over-you government is distinct and major. Whewn people needed help, they used to go to their friend, to charities, etc. And that way, they had to look into the faces of the people they were taking resources from, acknowledge the difficulty they were causing them, and (usually) get major motivation to pay it back and/or help others themselves when the opportunity arose.
It still happens in some cases, but more and more people simply "receive" welfare or subsidies or etc., without the least remorse about depriving those who gave up those resources with NO hope of ever getting them back, and no particular urge to help out later, those who helped them today. And the leftists currently in power do everything they can to prevent such remedial urges, denigrating instead the peiople who pay more and more, as "not paying enough" and shouting phrases such as "soak the rich, they DESERVE it" over and over.
When was the last time you heard an ad saying, "Thank the people who built those buildings, they've done far more for you that you may know"? I can hear the snickering in the background now.
This is not a new trend. Countries have done it before... and many of those countries are no longer with us, as a direct result (see USSR). Others started in abject poverty and continue wallowing in it today (Uganda, Mexico, Bangladesh etc.). And many who used to be prosperous, are sliding downhill, with mounting debts amidst cries of "but the rich aren't paying their fair share!", usually mouthed by increasing numbers of people who pay nothing (Greece, United States).
The trend is pernicious, and mounting. And it is by no means imaginary.
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