Like “Joe the Plumber” — who is not a licensed plumber, whose first name isn’t Joe, whose boss’s business makes $100K, not $250K and isn’t for sale, and who couldn’t afford it if it were for sale based on his own income of $40K and his outstanding tax lien — a certain sad proportion of white blue-collar men I know are wealth groupies.
Like Joe, they imagine they’ll make big money some day. They imagine themselves rich some day. And so they doggedly vote as if they were rich already, voting over and over again against their own self-interest, because they don’t want to identify with their own economic class — not in their hearts, and not in the voting booth, either.
– Lisa Small on the popularity of Joe the Plumber
Hi, I'm Scott Vandehey
I know I’ve read similar things like this before but it must a been in books instead a online.
Basically it’s not that they don’t want to identify with their economic class but they vote as if they were better off because they wish they had a higher SES and think that someday they will. Go American Dream!
Posted on October 31, 2008 at 8:57 pm.
Thank you, Scott, I’m honored to be quoted.
You linked to my Jane the Hairdresser post.
The piece on Joe the Plumber was a couple of posts earlier than the Jane version.
I appreciate the traffic! Thanks again.
Posted on November 3, 2008 at 1:05 pm.