Voting Against Your Self Interest

We've been told over and over that voters will vote their self interest...the old "bread and circuses" shtick. Steve Benen has a graph from Tim Noah's Slate series on "The Great Divergence" that speaks volumes about the difference, for the regular American, in Democratic and Republican administrations. It says a lot and you really have to ask yourself, with this evidence, why American votes continue to elect Republicans when all evidence says that they are voting against their self interest. Here is the telling paragraph...

Under Democrats, the biggest income gains were for people in the bottom 20th income percentile (2.6 percent). The income gains grew progressively smaller further up the income scale (2.5 percent for the 40th and 60th percentiles, 2.4 percent for the 80th percentile, and so on). But under Republicans, the biggest income gains were for people in the 95th percentile (1.9 percent). The income gains grew progressively smaller further down the income scale (1.4 percent for the 80th percentile, 1.1 for the 60th percentile, etc.)."

I am obviously going to read the whole series by Mr. Noah. Very interesting indeed.