"Reverse Bradley" or "Survival Instinct" Effect [View All]

[Joe Chi Minh]

Some time ago, I told my wife that a "redneck" was a certain type of person in America, who, like us, didn't have much money, but still voted for the Republicans - like our council-house Tories (not too many of them left post-Thatcher); they also markedly tended to be extreme racists.

Well, she told me just now that a lad who called himself a "redneck" lad was interviewed just now on our TV in the UK, and said he was voting for Obama, although a lot of his pals wouldn't be, because he was black.

And it then occurred to me that he might well be very surprised if he could see who those fellow "redneck" pals of his actually did vote for, in the voting booth.

How many of them would be unable to put 2 + 2 together? Not many, I think. In other words, in their world, touting their racism, in the teeth of a recession from which only Obama could rescue them, would almost cetainly have been a kind of perverse bravado. What I'd call the "Reverse Bradley", "Survival Instinct" or even "Secret Ballot" Effect. A pound to a pinch of snuff.