The fact that people given a choice between "abortion is illegal" or "poors don't starve to death" choose "abortion is illegal" doesn't mean they want poors to starve to death (although they do want that); it just means they want abortion to be illegal more.
Okay, it was a bad example because those kinds of hardliners do want all the bad things to happen. People given a choice between "close the military base and lose your jobs" and "keep your jobs, but we drop more bombs on brown people" don't necessarily want to drop more bombs on brown people, but they do want to keep their jobs.
> given a choice between "abortion is illegal" or "poors don't starve to death"
What are you talking about? No voter is faced with that choice.
> those kinds of hardliners do want all the bad things to happen
Who are these "hardliners" you speak of?
> People given a choice between "close the military base and lose your jobs" and "keep your jobs, but we drop more bombs on brown people"
No voter is faced with that choice either. Closing the military base in a particular district doesn't mean the military downsizes. It just means the base gets built in some other district whose representatives were better at getting pork for their constituents.
None of these things have anything to do with the basic problem I described.
Okay, it was a bad example because those kinds of hardliners do want all the bad things to happen. People given a choice between "close the military base and lose your jobs" and "keep your jobs, but we drop more bombs on brown people" don't necessarily want to drop more bombs on brown people, but they do want to keep their jobs.