A real world example:

By and large the trend of college-educated, upper middle class non-minority voters leans toward liberal policies that help minorities.

We tell ourselves it's because we want to help people. Give people a chance. Maybe this is true.

But it's also true that poor non-college educated minorities will never be able to take away something from upper-middle class college educated non-minorities.

You are giving nothing away. There is no risk and no loss for a white professor making 120K a year to vote for a Democrat.

However, if you're a poor non-college educated non-minority voter, giving more power to a poor non-college educated minority voter isn't as appealing. There is the possibility of risk and loss, with your livelihood (seemingly) given to someone who is on the same (apparent) playing field as you, but now has been given more power than you by simply voting for a different party.

So you vote for the person who will better align with your proximity to power.

Similarly, small business owners by and large vote conservative. Is it because they are immoral, greed-consumed men blinded by ambition and the smell of more money?

Maybe. Or maybe one party aligns with a business person's ability to succeed in business - the person's ability to become who they are, or who they want to be.

We can tell ourselves we are kind, and moral, flush with high-IQ and overwhelming compassion. All of which may be true.

But it's not why we vote. We can be moral, and certainly some people vote with a great deal of empathy.

But more deeply we vote for who we think will lessen the distance between ourselves and who we think will le

All to say - don't be so quick to congratulate ourselves for voting correctly, convinced anyone voting differently than us is flawed.