This can be described as "cognitive dissonance". There is also a widely observed phenomenon where people are much less likely to recognize their own faults, even if they are able to observe the same fault in people around them.
I think it factors down to priorities. When a state's industry (therefore state government revenues and employment -- the leading indicator of whether voters are happy with their current representatives) is threatened, politicians will conveniently ignore the fact that their actions are the opposite of "free market".
The same kind of rent-seeking (economic term, not related to being a landlord) is visible in the telecom area (incumbents lobbying for legislation to prevent local governments from competing as broadband ISPs), the cable industry (lobbying local governments to prevent competition by higher speed internet competition), car dealerships lobbbying to defend existing state laws that prevent Tesla from selling directly to consumers, etc.
And the larger problem in the social media / echo chamber era is that political parties encourage and demand unity, so people of the same political party are not likely to call them out on their crony legislation. It is sad, because conservative voters are more likely to only hear and trust news if it comes from conservative voices (just as liberals are more likely to trust news only if it comes from liberal voices).
I see it as a personal challenge to figure out how to better distribute objective news to people of all political beliefs and I'm investigating exploiting behavior / cognitive science to do it. Message me if anyone has ideas or a similar desire.
I don't know how to change this but it seems it's more and more acceptable to loudly proclaim opinions that are totally inconsistent. Talk to a cop who gets a super nice pension that's pretty much unaffordable for his community and he will tell you that he deserves his pension but everybody else who gets money from the government is just a freeloading parasite. Or people who get lifelong health care through the VA think socialized medicine is evil and unamerican.
This can be described as "cognitive dissonance". There is also a widely observed phenomenon where people are much less likely to recognize their own faults, even if they are able to observe the same fault in people around them.
I think it factors down to priorities. When a state's industry (therefore state government revenues and employment -- the leading indicator of whether voters are happy with their current representatives) is threatened, politicians will conveniently ignore the fact that their actions are the opposite of "free market".
The same kind of rent-seeking (economic term, not related to being a landlord) is visible in the telecom area (incumbents lobbying for legislation to prevent local governments from competing as broadband ISPs), the cable industry (lobbying local governments to prevent competition by higher speed internet competition), car dealerships lobbbying to defend existing state laws that prevent Tesla from selling directly to consumers, etc.
And the larger problem in the social media / echo chamber era is that political parties encourage and demand unity, so people of the same political party are not likely to call them out on their crony legislation. It is sad, because conservative voters are more likely to only hear and trust news if it comes from conservative voices (just as liberals are more likely to trust news only if it comes from liberal voices).
I see it as a personal challenge to figure out how to better distribute objective news to people of all political beliefs and I'm investigating exploiting behavior / cognitive science to do it. Message me if anyone has ideas or a similar desire.