Why Do they keep voting republican.
When it comes to seniors, it's so obvious we miss it.
Could it be that despite all the threats coming from the Republican side, overall the senior safety net has only gotten better as the one shared by the rest of society has withered.
In fact the results over the last two decades are so contrary to our warnings regarding the Republican agenda that to many Seniors Democrats must sound like outrageous fear mongering liars.
Yes we KNOW the truth is Republican proposals if made into law would spell the end of the senior safety net as we know it.
That "truth" amounts to NOTHING when set against the reality many Seniors see, and that is things always get better regardless of who is in charge.
That means when it comes time to vote, seniors don't have to consider the fate of social security when they decide who to vote for.
The bitter irony is Republicans can thank Democrats for the teflon shield.
Because Democrats are overwhelmingly PROACTIVE in our efforts to shield them from them from the consequences of their Republican vote, that the ruckus in DC never gets loud enough or scary enough for the seniors to take notice.
The times when seniors turned away in big enough #s to matter in 2006 they did so as a result of us not being able to play PROACTIVE interference, because we were out of power on all federal levels.
That meant seniors got an earful as Republicans delivered their message regarding the reforms they had in mind.
As a result, Seniors did not like what they heard, and enough turned away from them in 2006 to create that year's Democratic wave election.
Another bitter irony is nobody needs to be sacrificed for the Democrats to win on this issue.
All Democrats have to stop jumping the gun, and adopt a REACTIVE defense, instead of the constant proactive one we always adopt to thwart Republican initiatives.
If we are in a position to stop them with proactive tactics, that means we also have the votes to stop them period.
Smart politics would be to use our ability to stop them AFTER giving them a full, clear and uninterrupted public forum to express their views.
Of course some dread this will make seniors see Democrats as not defending them, but that's absurd.
As a demographic, they do NOT see the Democratic party as defending them, even when we are doing a full throated defense.
They do NOT accept our assertions that we are on their side.
So the notion that we will lose them is likewise ridiculous.
They are overwhelmingly Republican, and defending them will too soon will not make many become Democrats.
Instead, because of our efforts, Seniors see things have gotten better for them after every solid Republican vote. That means one thing to them, voting Republican last election was very smart indeed.
The details that explain how wrong they are really don't matter when time and time again, voting Republican ends up being a win for them, and the fact that Democrats are the ones who did deliver is a detail most don't notice.
The gradual improvement of senior benefits has been so consistent, that many Seniors have dispensed with the details of policy when deciding who to vote for.
Instead they decide who to vote for based on the what happened as a result of their last vote.
This is NOT the same thing as at a high info does decide based on the actual politics tht went on between the election and who said what.
That we assume they are paying attention to the details like we do is why our message never connects with so many of them.
They ignore the governing that happens in between elections.
Even watching Republicans demand cuts won't change their mind, because it has been without consequence for so long, to them it's just political hot air from both sides.
Seniors feel right to feel secure in their benefits, so they continue to vote Republican.
A high information voter would KNOW the reason why their benefits are secure was thanks to Democratic efforts, but Seniors for the most part depend on Fox News for information which is responsible for most seniors being more misinformed than any other demographic.
This overly simplistic decision making process is dramatically different from the politically aware decision making process we engage in.
It also explains why we make a mistake to treat seniors as high info voters. They are often the worst of the lo info voters, they are MISinformed voters.
For the seniors who voted Democrat in 2006 and 2008 the first two years of President Obama was proof they had made a terrible decision.
Instead of solidifying our gains, we went back to proactive defense again, and attempted to thwart Republican threats to senior benefits by tying them up in a grand bargain.
To seniors all that amounted to was talk of cutting Social Security and Medicare became louder than ever and more urgent. Only this time our voices were added to the cacophony.
It doesn't matter if we were doing defense. It only mattered to them, that as a result of voting Democrat they felt their benefits truly threatened.
So they returned to their voting patterns of a lifetime in 2010 and never looked back.
Being PROACTIVE means we jump in and volunteer way before seniors even notice what's going on.
It is why President Obama's grand bargain, a PROACTIVE effort to tie the Republicans to efforts to gut the senior social safety net failed miserably.
If we had learned anything from the Bush years it should have been when it comes to opposing Republican initiatives, the best policy is to shine a spotlight on it, and encourage them to speak at length about how they were going to gut the programs
Do that and Seniors will go LOOKING FOR someone to stop them.
We know the details matter, what we don't want to accept is a lot of seniors have found a voting formula that works for them that doesn't depend on knowing the details.
By being PROACTIVE we protect them too much, and allowing them to slip back into their old habits of voting Republican
If we are going to win a bigger part f the senior vote, we have to stop stepping in to defend them, before they feel a justified sense of fear as a result of Republican policy proposals.
It's clear Democrats will NEVER get credit for ensuring nothing bad happened, unless we allow enough seniors to feel the possibility that something could.
If we ever are going to end this cycle, we have to accept that often the most effective politics involve a lot of cold hearted manipulation in order to get people to do the right thing for the right reasons.
Our proactive efforts to protect a solid Republican voting block from the consequences of their voting Republican only ends up solidifying their support for Republicans, because they only consider the actual results of their last vote.
We need to learn to let the process go on long enough until they are forced to sit up and pay attention, and then reactively engage the Republican agenda.
Finally we need to start seeing the world the way many Seniors see things, rather than how we see it.
For Republican voting Seniors, voting Republican has resulted in a steady increase in benefits.
Voting republican works for them, because only good things have happened over the years when it comes to their safety net in spite of all the efforts by Republicans to cut them.
They do NOT see or acknowledge the truth we know. That this is mostly do to Democratic efforts to protect them.
That is a detail they never even notice, because we make it so they don't have to.
For them, things always get better.
Yes that's all utterly illogical and irrational, but only to someone who has been paying attention, like the high info voter.
For the low information senior voter its a decision making formula that has worked like a charm almost every single time.
Until we acknowledge it and alter our tactics they will continue to vote solidly Republican.
As for some evidence of the trends I'm referring to, you can look at this pew article.
http://www.pewresearch.org/...
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