outside the asylum
Those wily English, with their tea and their Doctor Who and their National Health Service, also happen to have an interesting perspective on the American political circus.
The other day, the BBC offered up a solid investigation as to why Americans tend to vote against their own interests. And, oddly enough, it’s not entirely that we Americans are ill-informed, though it does have a lot to do with our tendencies to trust emotional appeals over logial arguments, and the willingness of political organizations to abuse this tendency to turn people against policies that would, more than likely, do them a lot of good.
The story spends a lot of time with Thomas Frank, who wrote What’s The Matter With Kansas, which many (such as me) consider one of the defining pieces of analysis on why people in modern America behave the way they do with regard to authority and politics. If you haven’t read it, you should; it’s eye-opening.
Consider the BBC piece highly recommended; if nothing else, it’s interesting to get a look at how the rest of the world sees the United States.
