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knb comments on The Illusion of Sameness - Less Wrong
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It's weird how often people express this idea.
Since the marginal effect of your political affiliation upon the policies of a nation of 300 Million people is trivial, we shouldn't really expect it to be "in your interest" to vote for the bloc that promises you income transfers/lower taxes, etc. Rather, it is "clever" for people to vote their affiliations (i.e. what their family, friends, and coworkers vote for). This model actually correlates with the way people actually vote.
It is clever to say that you vote your affiliations.
Our 'voting' instincts come from a (slightly misapplied) execution of strategies that are adapted for political environments where support is giving via public declaration rather than anonymous ballot. At a national and global level it may well be one of humanity's greatest weaknesses.
The rationalist Bradley effect, if you will.
There was a clever exploit of this trick in the first post-WW2 Italian general election: the opposing choices were a Communist-Socialist alliance versus a Catholic-led conservative coalition, and one of the strongest Catholic slogans was: In the voting booth, God sees you - Stalin doesn't!
Brilliant anecdote, I'll use that one. Thanks. :)
Local government elections do exist. In those contexts it might make more sense to vote on policy issues. But in practice, most local government policy issues have little to do with the standard left/right divide. Moreover, the strength of affiliation issues becomes even more severe when people actually know the candidates.