Voting Against Our Own Interests: A Three-Layer Puzzle

Layer 1: The Human Mind Is Not a Calculator ~ Layer 2: Politics Is About Identity as Much as Policy ~ Layer 3: The Information Environment Shapes What We Believe ~ Putting the Layers Together ~ Laminated Card Version ~ The Real Question

Every election cycle someone asks a version of the same question:

Why do people vote against their own interests?

The question usually arrives with a mix of frustration and disbelief. It’s often asked about someone else: rural voters, urban voters, young voters, retirees. Whoever the speaker thinks should “know better.”

But the more we read and think about it, the more slippery the question becomes. What exactly counts as someone’s own interests? And why do we assume that voters make decisions the way economists imagine them to—coolly calculating costs and benefits like shoppers comparing tomatoes at the market?

Recently, our Scrapbook assistant pulled together ideas we’ve collected over the years. None of them fully explains the puzzle. But together they suggest a layered way of thinking about it.

The answer seems to live in three layers: psychology, politics, and the information environment.

Layer 1: The Human Mind Is Not a Calculator

Start with psychology.

People like to think they reason their way to political opinions. In practice, it often works the other way around. We adopt beliefs first, then construct reasons afterward.

Jonathan Haidt famously compared human reasoning to a lawyer defending a client rather than a judge evaluating evidence. Once we adopt a belief, we instinctively search for arguments that support it.

Several well-known mechanisms reinforce this tendency:

Cognitive dissonance.
When evidence contradicts our beliefs, we feel psychological discomfort. Instead of changing the belief, we often reinterpret the evidence.

Confirmation bias.
We seek out information that reinforces what we already think and quietly discard the rest.

Motivated ignorance.
Sometimes people avoid information entirely because knowing the truth would force them to reconsider their identity or social group.

In that sense, sticking with a belief—even when evidence mounts against it—can actually be the psychologically comfortable choice.

So before we even get to politics, the first complication appears:

People are not neutral processors of information.

Layer 2: Politics Is About Identity as Much as Policy

Now move up one layer—from psychology to politics.

If voters were motivated purely by economic self-interest, elections would look very different. Instead, political choices often reflect identity and belonging.

People vote in ways that signal

• who they are
• which group they belong to
• what values they want to express

That’s why voters sometimes support policies that appear economically harmful to them. The policy may conflict with their wallet but align with their moral worldview or group identity.

There is another wrinkle here.

Political scientist Suzanne Mettler documented what she calls the "government–citizen disconnect." Many people benefit from government programs without recognizing them as such. Tax credits, subsidies, or infrastructure investments simply appear as part of normal life. Because the connection is invisible, voters may support cutting programs they indirectly rely on.

In other words, people are not always voting against their interests. Sometimes they simply don’t see the connection between policy and outcome.

Layer 3: The Information Environment Shapes What We Believe

The third layer sits beneath both psychology and politics: the information system.

Democracy depends on something we rarely think about—a shared information environment. Citizens need some baseline agreement about facts in order to debate policy.

That shared environment has been fragmenting.

For most of the twentieth century, people in many countries consumed roughly the same news sources. Today, information is filtered through personalized feeds, partisan media ecosystems, and algorithmic recommendation engines.

The result is what some researchers call "bespoke realities".

Different groups encounter different information streams, reinforcing different interpretations of events. In such a landscape, arguments about competing realities quickly turn into arguments about reality itself.

And once reality becomes contested, identity becomes an even stronger guide for decision-making.

The cycle feeds itself:

• identity shapes which information people trust
• trusted information reinforces identity
• political choices follow from that identity

Putting the Layers Together

Seen this way, voting behavior isn’t a simple puzzle of rational choice.

It’s the outcome of a three-layer system:

Psychology
Identity and cognitive biases shape how individuals interpret information.

Politics
Group belonging and moral narratives influence how people translate beliefs into votes.

Information Systems
Media environments determine what information people encounter in the first place.

Put those layers together and something important emerges.

Voting decisions often reflect identity and narrative coherence more than economic calculation.

Laminated Card Version

Layer 1 — Psychology

Why individuals believe things.
identity → motivated reasoning → cognitive bias

Layer 2 — Politics

Why certain leaders and movements succeed.
anxiety → populism → demagogues → democratic erosion

Layer 3 — Information Systems

Why the environment amplifies these forces.
media fragmentation → algorithmic outrage → collapse of shared reality.

The Real Question

So maybe the question “Why do people vote against their interests?” starts from a flawed assumption. It assumes that interests are purely economic and that voters approach politics as rational calculators.

But humans rarely operate that way.

We vote as members of tribes, participants in narratives, and inhabitants of information worlds that shape what we see and believe.

Seen from that angle, the mystery isn’t why people sometimes vote against their interests. The mystery might be why we ever expected them not to.

On Naming, Not Persuasion

A letter to not send.

We wrote the following letter with no intention of sending it. It was a way to name something we were carrying and to put anger somewhere that wouldn’t leak out sideways.

We wrote it to clarify what had changed for us, not to change anyone else. Sometimes naming the damage is the only agency left.

We are sharing because we suspect we are not the only ones who have had these thoughts lately.

This letter is not meant to persuade you. It is meant to name what your choice has done to me.

Your vote changed how safe I feel in the world and how safe I feel with you. What you call politics entered my life as a personal loss.

The deepest wound is not disagreement, but your refusal to reflect or take responsibility for the harm your choice caused. I carry the consequences while you deny their existence.

I no longer trust that we share basic values of decency and truth. That loss has narrowed what we can share and who I can be with you.

This is the truth I need to acknowledge, even if you never do.

Arches Without Fees: Hiking Devil’s Garden During the Government Shutdown

Overview ~ Notes ~ Reflections ~ Photos

 

 

Top row: Views from trail near Double-O Arch over Devil's Garden and sandstone fins.

Bottom row: Double-O Arch and Landscape Arch in Arches National Park, Moab.
 

This post is about a hike through Arches National Park’s Devil’s Garden trail to Double O Arch. We were in Moab for a wedding and had limited free time to explore, so we only caught a glimpse of Moab’s surreal beauty. Even this hike was cut short for a pre-wedding dinner back in town. On the day we visited the park entrance was wide open: no fees were collected due to the government shutdown.

Overview 

Length: ~7.2 km (4.5 miles) (out-and-back to Double O Arch; the full loop is longer) 

Duration: 1.5 hours (we turned back before completing the loop) 

Elevation gain: 101 m (331 ft) 

Location: USA, Utah, Moab, Arches National Park

The Devil’s Garden trail is one of Arches National Park’s signature hikes, leading to a series of arches tucked into sandstone fins and ridges. Our destination was Double O Arch, a dramatic formation where two arches stack one above the other, like nature’s own punctuation mark. 

Notes

Driving into Arches felt surreal because we had not experienced this landscape in person before and were blown away. You normally stop at the entrance station, pay the fee, and get a map. (Or in some days we heard, you might have to wait to get into the park.) But because of the government shutdown, the booths were empty. Again, a little surreal. We simply rolled into the park, a free pass into one of America’s most iconic landscapes. It was unsettling—like sneaking into a museum after hours—but also a reminder of how fragile the systems are that protect these places.

The trail itself begins at Devil’s Garden trailhead, literally the end of the road in the park. From the trailhead, you go past Landscape Arch, one of the longest natural arches in the world. From there, the path grows more rugged, scrambling over slickrock and weaving through sandstone fins.


We reached Double O Arch, marveling at how erosion had carved two openings in the same sandstone wall. The larger arch frames the desert beyond, while the smaller one sits below like a hidden window. Standing there, you can't help but wonder how these arches form. The answer lies in millions of years of geologic processes:

• Sandstone layers deposited in ancient seas.
• Uplift and erosion exposing the rock.
• Cracks forming in the sandstone fins.
• Water seeping in, freezing and thawing, breaking rock apart.
• Wind and rain slowly enlarging openings until arches emerge.

In geologic time, arches are temporary features—eventually they collapse. Landscape Arch, for example, has shed massive rock slabs in recent decades, a reminder that these formations are always changing.

We didn’t complete the loop trail. Time was short, and Moab awaited with a pre-wedding dinner. Hiking back the way we came, we felt both satisfied and determined to return to explore more in the proper Travelmarx style. That said, the wedding activities were a blast.

Reflections

Returning to the United States after time abroad felt strangely disorienting. Driving into Arches without paying an entrance fee—because of the government shutdown—only heightened the sense that we’d stepped into a country paused mid-sentence. The landscape itself was timeless, yet the atmosphere back home was anything but: a highly charged political environment where even casual family conversations required careful navigation to avoid hot-button topics.

Against that backdrop, our hike through Devil’s Garden became more than just a walk among arches. It was a reminder of permanence and impermanence—the sandstone fins shaped over millions of years, and the fleeting turbulence of human affairs. Later that evening, we shifted from the silence of the desert to the joy of a wedding pre-celebration in Moab. The next day we would be not just guests but officiants, standing with a young couple as they began their life together.

The juxtaposition was striking with political gridlock on the national stage, personal restraint in family conversations, and then, in the middle of it all, the unambiguous joy of a wedding. The arches will one day collapse, the political climate will shift, but what endures are the bonds we create with one another: shared celebrations, moments of togetherness, and the sense of being united for common ends.

Photos

 

Left: View of Landscape Arch with grey sky.
Right: Trail in Devil's Garden.

 

Left: Sandstone fins in Devil's Garden, Arches National Park, Moab.

Right: A sign explaining how the "walls" or "fins" are formed.

  

Left: Formation in Devil's Garden.

Center: Sign at trailhead showing the possible routes.

Right: Our tracks for walk from trailhead to Double-O and back.

Donne della Costituente – The Woman of the Constituent or Constitutional Assembly

  
A memorial plaque in Parco Sant'Agostino Bergamo commemorating the women of the Constitutional Assembly. And, a tree dedicated to Adele Bei, one of the members.

On June 2, 1946, Italians were called upon to choose between the Monarchy and the Republic and to elect their representatives to the Constituent Assembly. There were 21 women elected, out of a total of 556 deputies. None were from Bergamo.

To remember this event, 21 trees in Parco Sant’Agostino in Bergamo were named after the 21 women elected to the Constituent Assembly on 2 June 1946. Also, an informational plaque was placed at the entrances to the park. The recognition and gesture requested by the Women's Council on the 75th anniversary of the Constitution of the Italian Republic.

A word about the phrase donne costituente is read as “woman of the constituent assembly”. Some terminology:

• costituente – founding, constituent (adj); member (nm). Usually used to refer to those who worked on creating the constitution, as in the assemblea costituente (or constituent assembly in English).
• costituire – to establish or found; to constitute. Note this is not costruire – to build.
• costituzione – constitution, among other meanings. 

A note about the design. There are two colored ribbons weaving through the images, red and green. The ribbons seem to connect some of the women but not all. As far as we can tell, the red ribbon represents ‘approximately’ the Italian Communist Party and the green ribbon the Christian Democracy Party. Both parties no longer exist but were powerful forces at the time of the referendum on the monarchy. Perhaps a better way to think about it is that more than associating people, the ribbons are meant to call out (and was pointed out in the city hall web site): that they all were opposed to fascism.

• Italian: “Molto diverse tra loro per età, cultura, professione, provengono tutte da precedenti esperienze di impegno sociale e politico, caratterizzato dall'opposizione al fascismo; in molti casi sono state attive nella Resistenza.”
• English: Very different from each other in age, culture, profession, they all come from previous experiences of social and political commitment, characterized by opposition to fascism; in many cases they were active in the Resistance.

The 21 women are:

Adele Bei (Cantiano, 4 maggio 1904 - Roma, 15 ottobre 1976)
Bianca Bianchi (Vicchio di Mugello, 31 luglio 1914 - 9 luglio 2000)
Laura Bianchini (Castenedolo, 23 agosto 1903- Roma il 27 settembre 1983)
Elisabetta Conci (Trento, 23 marzo 1895 - Mollaro in Valle di Non, 1 novembre 1965)
Filomena Delli Castelli (Cittä Sant'Angelo, 28 settembre 1916 - 22 dicembre 2010)
Maria De Unterrichter (Ossana (Tn), 20 agosto 1902 - 27 dicembre 1975)
Maria Federici nata Anna Maria Agamben (Aquila, 19 settembre 1899 - 28 luglio 1984)

Nadia Gallico Spano (Tunisi, 2 giugno 1916 - Roma, 19 gennaio 2006)
Angela Gotelli (Albareto, 28 febbraio 1905 - 21 novembre 1996)
Angela Guidi (Roma 31 Ottobre 1896 - 11 lugiio 1991)
Nilde lotti (Reggio Emilia, 10 Aprile 1920 - Roma, 4 Dicembre 1999)
Teresa Mattei (Genova, 1 Febbraio 1921 - Usigliano, 12 Marzo 2013)
Lina Merlin (Pozzonovo, 15 Ottobre 1887 - Padova, 16 Agosto 1979)
Angiola Minella (Torino, 3 Febbraio 1920 - Genova, 12 Marzo 1988)

Rita Montagnana (Torino, 6 gennaio 1895 — Roma, 18 luglio 1979)
Maria Nicotra (Catania, 6 luglio 1913 — Padova, 14 luglio 2007)
Teresa Noce (Torino, 29 luglio 1900 — Bologna, 22 gennaio 1980)
Ottavia Penna (Caltagirone, 12 aprile 1907 — Caltagirone, 2 dicembre 1986)
Elettra Pollastrini (Rieti, 15 luglio 1908 - Rieti, 2 febbraio 1990)
Maria Maddalena Rossi (Codevilla, 29 settembre 1906 — Milano, 19 settembre 1995)
Vittoria Titomanlio (Barletta, 22 aprile 1899 — Napoli, 28 dicembre 1988)


   

A memorial plaque in Parco Sant'Agostino Bergamo commemorating the women of the Constitutional Assembly. And, a tree dedicated to Teresa Mattei, one of the members.

Progress: Myth, History, and Origin

Recently we read three books on the subject of progress that are lumped together in one idea stew – for better or worse - in the Travelmarx mind. Two of the books, The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress and A Short History of Progress deal with the notion of progress directly. The third book, The Grand Design, deals with progress of our cosmological knowledge.

The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress (2010) by journalist, author, and war correspondent Chris Hedges is perhaps the most depressing read of the three. Yes we love Hedges’ insightful analysis and comments and call to action (really revolt), but it’s hard to escape psychologically unbruised from his writing and he does have a habit of invoking (at least in our minds) Marvin the Paranoid Android and his lament about a “… terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side”. That said, this collection of dispatches is essential reading if you think everything is hunky dory and humanity is just humming along swimmingly. Take this opening sentence from the “Calling All Future Eaters” dispatch: “The human species during its brief time on Earth has exhibited a remarkable capacity to kill itself off.” The state of progress: it’s a myth.

A Short History of Progress (2004) by Ronald Wright is a book that deals with where we’ve come from, where we are, and were we are going. Wright starts out by invoking Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and his 1897 painting titled “D’où Venons Nous? Que Sommes Nous? Où Allons Nous?” or “Where Do We Come From? What are We? Where are We Going?” Gauguin, a French artist, went to Tahiti and the South Seas to escape “everything that is artificial, conventional, customary.” [Noa Noa – Paul Gauguin, 1919 by Nicholas Brown] In A Short History of Progress, Wright is interested in shining light on the last question: “Where are we going?” by first answering the other two questions. The state of progress: in jeopardy if we don’t seriously change, “…Homo sapiens has the information to know itself for what it is: an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligence; clever but seldom wise.”

The Grand Design (2010) by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow is a fairly accessible account of the design of the universe and how it came to be. The progress aspect here is our understanding of the universe’s beginning and end, or shall we say universes’. The first good thing we’ll say about the book is that, refreshingly, there isn’t subtitle on this book. The second good thing is that there are some simple explanations of concepts like model dependent reality or the double –slit experiment that in case you hadn’t seen explanations of them before might be worth it. But, other than that, this book reads like an extended essay that wasn’t exactly finished and overall feels disappointing. And, at times the writing is corny.

The Grand Design sets out to answer three questions. “Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why this particular set of laws and not some other?” In the process, the book gives a quick review of the state of progress in cosmology over the last few hundred years. The state of progress: according to the authors, we do not need to invoke divine beings to answer these questions.

Of interest to those watching the progress of media technology, the Grand Design was the first book read entirely digital and all of these were purchased and read on with the Kindle application on iPad. The process for making notes and using the notes is different in this medium. You make a note or highlight in the Kindle application and then you go the Amazon Kindle site and retrieve your notes. Cloud reading. We are still getting the hang of it so you could say that there is a lot more progress to be made.

Let's Evolve: Change We Can Believe In

Every politician promises change but it never seems to arrive. Well, there is change you can believe in: the change brought about by the process of natural selection, the key mechanism of evolution. The image is courtesy of Mike Rosulek. His take on the iconographic Obama poster has several versions all around the theme of evolution. Profits from use of the images benefit the National Center for Science Education (NSCE) - a great organization whose mission is to keep evolution a part of science education.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

It remains to be seen how this past Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, on campaign financing will play out. However, we have a bad feeling about this nugget of conservative judicial activism that basically opens the floodgates of spending from corporations and unions in elections. Apparently, existing safeguards on spending by corporations was a restriction of their free speech. Hmm. In that light, it is interesting reading through Justice Steven’s dissenting opinion, in particular, what he had to say about corporations (page 88 of ruling):

“In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters.”

The case was brought before the court because of the nonprofit corporation Citizens United’s attempt to show Hillary the Movie in violation of the McCain-Feingold Act (which is now essentially null).

The Voting Buddy System

We filled out our absentee ballots Saturday night and Sunday morning using teamwork. It really took several hours to review all the information. There were 35 choices ranging from county charter amendments, judicial positions, regional transit issues, and local levies not to mention the biggies like president and governor. For each choice we both did research (internet) and argued different sides until we came to a conclusion where we agreed or disagreed but felt firm in our decisions. The hard choices for us in this election were Lieutenant Governor (what does this position really do?), Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Superintendent of Public Instruction. (For the latter one we called our neighbor a teacher and her first hand experience helped us decide.) For the judicial positions, this Web site was of use. For ballot measures, this site was useful if not a bit incomplete. This site had some concerncs about absentee ballots that are interesting.

The Rashomon Effect and The Election

Do you get those election emails that subtly or not-so subtly bash one candidate or party? Do you also get the person who “passes” customized email with a personalized message of “just passing these on as they come my way…” as if he or she couldn’t help but press send? Let me just say, we are not swing voters so these emails rarely speak to us. Secondly, facts compiled in these emails are rarely trustworthy, especially when it says at the bottom, “pass this along to as many people as you can!”. Thirdly, we are in our consonant bubble of belief – leave us alone!

One of the ideas we’ve tried to keep in the back of our minds this election season is that we are not that dissimilar from our fellow Americans; not as disimmilar as you would think watching the media. We keep this idea alive because otherwise communicating and reaching out would seem out of the question. (But, boy is it hard with the current cast of characters on the national stage.) Reaching out is especially important in politically split families. One family member sees a particular candidate’s potential election to the presidency as “we are going to hell in a hand basket” while another one sees it as hope. It’s the Rashomon effect applied to our views of plausible outcomes for the next four years for this country.

Swingers

Sour grapes you can say, but I’m tired of being ignored in the presidential election. Just because I don’t live in a “swing” state means I don't get my fair share of the campaigning attention I feel I deserve. Looking at the map included here (from Wikipedia) shows fairly dramatically how much attention and money is paid to swing states. The data is from the last 5 weeks of the 2004 election. The data comes from the site http://www.fairvote.org/presidential/?page=1677www.fairvote.org. On the map on the left each waving hand represents a visit from a presidential or vice-presidential candidate during the final five weeks of the election. On the map on the right, each dollar sign represents one million dollars spent on TV advertising by the campaigns during the same time period.

In per capita terms, the states receiving the most attention were Iowa, Ohio, and New Hampshire. In absolute time, the three states receiving the most attention were Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. So there you are.

Phelps, Bigfoot, and Presidentialism

What do these three things have in common? Perhaps nothing really, but in my early-morning, crow-cawing-pierced, groggy Saturday morning mind they all united in a common theme: fascination with the “top dog” to the exclusion of everything else. I know, sour grapes in regards to Phelps and his medals, but it did not sit well with me the response and media coverage of his effort. It seemed so over-the-top to the exclusion of all other possible stories. Now a pending book. Then throw in another Bigfoot hoax. People just want to believe there is a “big guy”, a “top dog” out there waiting to be discovered. The "discovery" was complete with an official news conference put on by the two car salesmen who made the find. Psst, hey reporters, you know that Bigfoot doesn’t exist and besides (exclusion theme) we have so many other serious problems (war, poverty, etc.) to deal with? Finally, there is the vice president choice for the two presidential candidates. Does it matter? Not really according to many and it displays our endless fascination with the “top dog”. In an interesting piece called The Conquest of Presidentialism, presidentialism as defined by Vanderbilt professor Dana Nelson is: our paternalistic view that presidents are godlike saviors—and therefore democracy’s only important figures. In the same piece there is a reference to a quote by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859), a French historian who made some astute observations about 19^th century American democracy that are still relevant today, which I’ll repeat here. The quote refers to our capability to select leaders. True or false?

“It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.” (Democracy in America, Volume 2)