Part 2: The Myth of the Irrational Voter

Why the claim "voting against your interests" is misguided.

Note to reader: This piece is Part 2 of a four-part series exploring the moral, political, and structural crisis of democracy—and how to reimagine it. My critique comes from deep concern for a media and political echo chamber I believe is fundamentally broken and in need of collective reckoning. This series is free to all, but if you enjoy it and have the means, I’d greatly appreciate it if you considered becoming a paid subscriber below. Let’s dive in.

In Part One of this series, I wrote about the danger of treating democracy like a brand. Something we’re told to defend, even when it’s no longer defending us. For this part, I want to stay with that thread a little longer. Because there’s another myth making it harder to meet this moment honestly: the idea that voters keep making the wrong choices, “voting against their own interests,” as the saying goes—and that if they were just smarter or better informed, democracy would be fine.

Every election cycle, the same story resurfaces: if only voters were smarter, more informed, or less emotional, they’d make better choices. Trump wouldn’t win, turnout would soar, and the American people would finally act in their own interests. But here's the uncomfortable reality: if every eligible voter had turned out, Trump likely would have won by an even wider margin. That fact alone should force us to reconsider the narrative that turnout is the solution—and that nonvoters are simply failing to do their part.

This is the great comfort of elite punditry: the belief that the problem isn’t the system, but the people. If they vote for Trump, they must be brainwashed. If they don’t vote at all, they must be apathetic or ignorant. If they demand something better, they’re being unrealistic. You hear it constantly: working-class voters in the Rust Belt are voting “against their own interests.” Young people pushing for climate justice or Palestine solidarity are told they’re unserious or naive. Communities of color who criticize Democrats for broken promises are accused of aiding the white supremacist far right. In all cases, questioning the system is painted as irrational. How dare they vote that way! Don’t they know what’s best for them! These assumptions are as prescriptive as they are condescending. They presume a mostly-white, wealthy, highly educated political class knows best. But maybe these “irrational” voters are the ones with the most rational response of all.

Political scientist Larry Bartels explored this tension in his essay "Homer Gets a Tax Cut," which analyzed public support for the 2001 Bush tax cuts. Despite widespread belief that the wealthy would benefit most, a majority of Americans still supported the policy. Bartels argued this wasn’t because voters were stupid or irrational—it was because political messaging, symbolic identity, and deeply held narratives about economic aspiration shaped their responses. What might look like a contradiction on the surface often reflects something more complicated underneath: a mix of lived experience, trust (or lack of it), and a system that too often uses the tools at its disposal to manipulate voters in bad faith.

This myth props up the entire political status quo: that people are too foolish to know what’s good for them, so the system must go on without them. It’s a myth reinforced by decades of neoliberal policy—from welfare reform to mass privatization to trade deals that hollowed out entire regions—policies that promised efficiency and growth, but instead concentrated wealth and stripped communities of power. Neoliberalism reframed citizenship around consumer choice and personal responsibility, while dismantling the very public institutions that made democratic participation meaningful. It taught people to expect less—and then blamed them for disengaging when there was less to expect.

But what if none of that was true? What if people aren’t irrational, but exhausted? Not uninformed, but unconvinced? Not apathetic, but done being gaslit?

Here’s the truth that’s hard for the “pro-democracy” establishment to swallow: many people see the system for what it is. The Harris campaign, like so many before it, failed to acknowledge this reality. It asked people to choose the lesser of two evils without fundamentally promising anything new. That meant asking voters who have been exploited and abandoned by the system to vote for its most polished defender. That’s a deeply unfair ask. You cannot simply tell people whose lives have gotten harder that the solution is a return to normal. For many, normal was already the problem. The campaign assumed the language of competence and institutional stability would be enough. But that message doesn’t land when people feel like the institutions being preserved have already failed them. The campaign—and much of the media that surrounded it—never seriously confronted why so many people no longer see themselves reflected in the system they’re being asked to defend.

Voters understand that the choices on offer won’t touch their rent, debt, or healthcare. You can see the pain behind the numbers. In Bozeman, Montana, a man was recently filmed fixing his wife's car so she could continue driving for DoorDash. They’re living out of a trailer because rent in the area has become prohibitively expensive. The ultra-wealthy have turned Western towns like Bozeman into their own private playground while local workers are stuck underemployed and underhoused.

Photo by Roger Lipera on Unsplash

This isn’t an outlier—it’s a snapshot of what life looks like for millions of Americans. And when the political class responds to stories like this with platitudes or process talk, it only deepens the sense that no one in power is actually listening. In that context, frustration, anger, even defiance start to make sense.

That frustration isn’t just economic. It’s existential. Even deeper than the material failures is the emotional vacuum—many people don’t just feel abandoned economically, they feel abandoned existentially. Politics no longer offers meaning, purpose, or belonging. The rituals of democracy continue, but the connection is gone. For those struggling to find direction or identity in a disjointed, unequal world, the system doesn’t just feel broken—it feels hollow.

When someone votes for Trump, it’s often not about policy—it’s about clarity. He speaks in absolutes in a political culture built on hedging. When someone stays home, it’s not because they’re lazy. It’s because they don’t believe either candidate will fight for them. And when someone tunes out entirely, it’s often because engagement has begun to feel like a performance with no reward.

This isn’t irrational. It’s rational. In fact, the continued assumption that people should vote purely on policy checklists or party loyalty is what’s irrational. It ignores the emotional, historical, and material context in which people are making decisions—or refusing to make them at all. When people have been failed so many times, withdrawal becomes not just understandable, but a form of self-protection, even resistance. Getting out to vote for a broken system, because “it’s the right thing to do” becomes less about rationality and more about guilt.

The myth of the irrational voter exists to protect the legitimacy of a system that doesn’t want to change. And there’s a reason the Never Trump, pro-democracy movement has primarily targeted educated, affluent, suburban white voters—because the system, by and large, has historically served them. They are its most reliable defenders because they have been its most consistent beneficiaries. But that defense often comes at the expense of the very voters they scorn: the red-hatted, working-class Trump voter whose trust in the system has long since eroded. Rather than reckon with that abandonment, the movement builds its coalition around those who still feel served, rather than those who have every reason to walk away. And too often, it does so by painting working-class Trump voters as irredeemably racist or ignorant—convenient scapegoats for problems the movement itself helped create. To be fair, some Never Trump voices have acknowledged their roles in advancing policies that entrenched systemic racism, gutted labor protections, and eroded the public sector. But many continue to posture as defenders of democracy while downplaying their complicity in shaping the political and economic order that made Trumpism possible in the first place.

It gives elites moral cover to shame the disillusioned rather than ask why so many people feel abandoned. And it obscures the deeper racial and economic dynamics at play. Much of the right’s messaging hinges on a false portrayal of scarcity—on the idea that any investment in marginalized communities comes at the expense of white Americans. This zero-sum logic has long been used to pit working people against each other, when in reality it’s the wealthy and powerful who have hoarded resources and opportunity. The racism that animates so much of today’s reactionary politics isn’t just hatred—it’s a narrative of threat, crafted to distract from shared struggle and consolidate control.

If we want to revive democracy, we have to stop treating disillusionment as a character flaw. And to be fair, there are real concerns behind the pushback to this argument. Some will say: But isn’t it dangerous to validate people who flirt with authoritarianism? Aren’t we normalizing apathy at a time when the stakes are higher than ever?

These concerns are real—but they miss the point. Naming the legitimacy crisis is not about excusing bigotry or disengagement. It’s about understanding the ways in which both take root. People don’t turn to demagogues or drop out of civic life because they’re inherently anti-democratic. Consider the wave of strikes across industries—from auto workers to Hollywood writers—where people sought not just better wages, but more control over their work and lives. That’s longstanding democratic energy, redirected outside of electoral politics.

Restoring belief in democracy doesn’t start with finger-wagging. It starts by making democracy real again. And that also means accepting our own role in the brokenness of the current system. It means asking where we’ve been complicit—whether by staying silent, accepting the status quo as inevitable, or benefiting from a political order that has worked better for some than others. Accepting our role doesn’t mean wallowing in guilt. It means refusing to look away. It means recognizing that the promise of democracy was never truly extended to everyone—and taking responsibility for helping to extend it now. Disillusionment isn’t a flaw. It’s a form of political intelligence—a reflection of lived experience. It’s a signal that the story we’re telling about democracy isn’t matching what people are living. And that’s a disconnect we ignore at our own risk.

I’ve worked on campaigns where the energy was electric. Students, retirees, parents with babies in tow—all showing up, day after day, not because they were naive, but because they believed in the possibility of something better. There’s something profoundly human about that kind of organizing. It represents the best of what democracy can be: shared purpose, real connection, and hope that the system can still respond to the people inside it.

But imagine a system people could believe in—one they had a stake in, not just every few years at the ballot box, but every day in their lives.

Imagine a democracy where political engagement didn’t mean choosing between the lesser of two evils, but being part of a living process that could be steered and changed. Where community forums mattered as much as cable news, and where policy wasn’t something done to people, but built with them.

People don’t disengage because they don’t care. They disengage because they know they’re not being taken seriously. Change that—and people will be more likely to show up.

Because when people feel like they matter—when their voices shape decisions, when they see change happen, when they’re invited into something bigger than a slogan—they respond. They organize. They show up. They bring others with them. That’s not naive optimism. It’s the foundation of every real democratic movement we’ve ever had.

A better system isn’t a fantasy. It starts with listening to the people who’ve been ignored, honoring those who keep showing up anyway, and believing that politics can be about dignity—not just damage control.

That’s the vision. And it’s worth fighting for—because believing in people’s capacity to participate, to lead, to shape their world isn’t idealism. It’s rational. It’s based on the evidence of what happens when people are trusted and included. The real irrationality is expecting turnout, engagement, or loyalty from a public that’s been systematically shut out.

If we want a democracy that survives, it has to be one people are invited to co-create—not just defend. That’s not just a better strategy. It’s a better kind of politics.