Adam Seth Levine, a professor of government at Cornell University, took to The Times this morning to promote his book American Insecurity: Why Our Economic Fears Lead to Political Inaction.  We on the left have been wondering forever why people "vote against their economic interests" or why progressive political messages fail to inspire or convince so many people.

Levine observes, based on experiment:

Reminding people of the financial constraints that they face or could face, from layoffs to threats to Medicare, reduces their perception that they can afford to contribute money. If they are in the labor force, it also undercuts their willingness to spend time.

This is Levine's great contribution to the debate and this is also where he goes right off the rails. There is not a "perception" about whether or not people facing financial constraints can afford to donate money to political causes.  Practically speaking, they can't.  Should a person without an emergency fund or retirement savings be making contributions to political candidates?  Would that even be an effective for of advocacy given that their limited donations would be dwarfed in importance by major donations to parties and Political Action Committees?  You don't solve the problem of money in politics by convincing people without money to play a loser's game.

People short on money are generally similarly bereft of time.  Levine writes about perceptions and willingness when the real issue is scarcity of both time and money.  It's a vicious cycle, of course, because the system that makes time and money scarce is barely even open to comment from people who have neither.

Levine argues, later on:

"Many of those facing economic insecurity are far from poor, and have at least some discretionary income. But the appeals that specifically reminded them of their own financial constraints reduced their willingness to donate."

I'd love to see Levine's standard here.  Do these people have a 6 month emergency fund?  Do they have either a vested pension or have they donated the maximum to their 401(k)? Do they have college savings for their kids?

"In short, political messages based on insecurity can backfire precisely because they remind people of their difficult circumstances. I call this self-undermining rhetoric — rhetoric that brings to mind considerations that undermine the very goals the rhetoric aims to achieve.

I get it,  Telling people the truth can be bad advertising. Maybe we on the left need to heed a higher calling here.  We shouldn't be trying to extract donations from people who could put that money to better use.