Have you ever gotten the feeling that “the Left,” however you personally define it, is trying to get rid of you? I’d advise you to trust your gut, because that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. Why? The answer lies in what is known as the Curley effect.
What is the Curley Effect?
In the early 1900’s, the Boston mayor James Michael Curley wanted to implement policies that would shore up his voting bloc and reduce the power of the opposition. He represented the poorest and most distinctly ethnic of Boston’s Irish population. Boston’s Brahmins despised him for his policies, his corruption, and his abrasive and confrontational rhetoric. They were his loyal opposition, they always worked against him. Curley’s share of Boston’s vote increased in the share of poor Irish among the Bostonians. Unsurprisingly, he (successfully) attempted to engineer Boston’s demographics into a voting bloc of citizens that would favor him, but did so through a series of moves that actually worked to impoverish Boston & hurt the people he was supposed to be representing. A politician or a political party can achieve long-term political dominance by tipping the balance of votes in their direction through the implementation of policies that strangle and stifle the economic health of the region. Counter-intuitively, making a city poorer can lead to political success for those who engineer the impoverishment.
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