Why do Republicans delight in suffering?

[phantom power]

1. I doubt there's any one answer...

One is that, by definition, 99% of republicans are just as poor as the rest of the 99%, and so the party leaders *require* an ideology that teaches them to blame all of this on the poor themselves. Because the alternative is that they would blame the 1%, and then who would vote for them? So, they propagate an ethical system where basically anything bad that happens to a person is inherently their fault. They call this Calvinistic philosophy "personal responsibility."

Another reason is that white republicans tend to mean "poor minorities" when they think in terms of suffering and moral hazard, subconsciously or consciously. It has been observed that racism is so strong with many people, even in 2012, that they'd prefer to live in squalor rather than risk any government aid going to "the wrong sort."