On the Political Manufacture of Satisfaction

The morning after the election, I observed gatherings of people whose expressions suggested the quiet satisfaction of victory. I suspected they had voted for the freshly christened Democrats Socialists of America. A few appeared to glance in my direction, though whether their attention concerned me, the election, or nothing whatsoever, I could not determine. I knew neither their votes nor their thoughts, and had no intention of conducting an inquiry.

Nevertheless, the spectacle interested me.

Had these people been celebrating the principles of their newly elected representatives, or merely the defeat of their opponents? Had they acquired something they desired, or had they simply deprived someone else of it?

Congratulations, then Comrades. You have won.

Now let us examine what you have won.

Trump remains president, though his second and final term has little more than two years remaining. He is what political language calls a lame duck, an expression suggesting helplessness in a man who still commands the executive branch and possesses the power to veto legislation. The Democrats have acquired congressional authority, but they have not thereby abolished the presidency or removed its occupant. Their victory must now confront the stubborn machinery of government.

The voter has enjoyed the satisfaction of changing the government without yet suffering the inconvenience of discovering what has changed.

The satisfaction of an election is immediate. Its consequences are not.

What Are We Actually Voting For?

The voter enters the polling place not as a detached philosopher, but as a person burdened by the circumstances of ordinary life. The price of food has risen, the cost of living presses upon him, promises concerning foreign wars remain disputed, and controversies surrounding Trump and the Epstein files have supplied further grounds for dissatisfaction.

I suspect many voted for the Democrats not from a comprehensive understanding of their candidates’ programs, but from frustration with the conditions under which they live. This is neither remarkable nor peculiar to Democrats.

Who among us possesses sufficient leisure to examine every proposed law, every candidate’s record, and every consequence that might follow from the exercise of political power? We form our judgments from experience, principle, and the information available to us. We then entrust those judgments to representatives whose future conduct remains largely unknown.

I am no exception.

Were I to vote according to political philosophy alone, I would generally choose the Libertarian. I prefer that individuals conduct their affairs with as little government interference as possible. Yet the Libertarian candidate, however agreeable his principles, seldom appears capable of acquiring the office he seeks. Thus arises the familiar contradiction between expressing one’s convictions and influencing the distribution of political power.

The voter is perfectly free to choose the candidate he prefers, provided he is prepared to accept the election of the candidate he most opposes.

I generally vote for Republicans, not because every Republican deserves my admiration, but because I regard many forms of government intervention as contributing to the economic difficulties they profess to remedy. I would sooner allow markets to adjust through the decisions of those participating in them than continually introduce new political corrections whose consequences may outlast their immediate benefits.

Another voter observes the same difficulties and concludes that more intervention is required. Where I see the accumulated consequences of interference, he may see the insufficient exercise of authority.

We confront the same conditions and propose opposing remedies. Both of us anticipate improvement. Neither possesses the future.

My own ballot demonstrated that political judgment is seldom a pure expression of philosophy. Republican campaigns, particularly Ken Paxton’s, filled my telephone with appeals for support until the appeals themselves became an argument against their senders. The messages intended to secure my vote nearly drove me to cast it elsewhere. Their political content had not persuaded me; their persistence had irritated me.

Here was political persuasion in its most accomplished form: the campaign had succeeded in reaching the voter so frequently that he began to regard the candidate’s defeat as a public service.

There was also Dan Patrick, whom I associated with the state’s crackdown on cannabis businesses and the events surrounding Hazy Daze. Having personally experienced the consequences of that affair, I could not bring myself to support him. I voted Libertarian in that race.

In most others, I voted Republican, considering it the more practical means of opposing policies I believed harmful.

Thus my ballot contained philosophy, calculation, experience, and resentment, each exercising its influence. Why should I suppose that the ballots of others were produced by some entirely different process?

The Engineering of Dissatisfaction

Public opinion does not emerge from a vacuum. It develops within a continuous circulation of information selected and distributed by institutions whose interests are not necessarily those of the people receiving it. Television networks require audiences, campaigns require votes, advertisers require attention, and platforms require continued engagement. Each pursues its own purpose, yet their activities combine so that certain subjects are repeated until they appear to constitute the whole of public life. Controversy attracts viewers, viewers attract advertisers, and outrage encourages further circulation. The subject becomes important because it receives attention, and receives attention because it has become important.

Thus the public is generously supplied with the freedom to form its own opinions, while an entire industry busies itself deciding which subjects those opinions shall concern. Nor must the information be false. A hundred accurate accusations against one politician may still produce a distorted understanding if every competing consideration remains unexamined. The question is not merely whether a statement is true, but why this particular truth has been presented so often while others remain neglected. I have watched people carry the subjects of television broadcasts into ordinary conversation as though the television had established the order of importance for the world itself. My telephone provided a smaller demonstration. The campaign messages arrived without invitation, interrupted my activities, and gradually replaced consideration with annoyance. The advertiser had succeeded in reaching me while failing to persuade me.

This machinery need not manufacture dissatisfaction from nothing. The cost of living, political disappointments, and broken promises provide grievances enough. Its peculiar accomplishment is to select among them, assign responsibility, and return them to the public with such regularity that the distinction between personal experience and supplied indignation becomes increasingly difficult to recognize. The voter may possess perfectly legitimate reasons for anger, while remaining unaware of how carefully his attention has been directed toward some grievances rather than others.

Consider the man who has spent years hearing of Trump’s failures, controversies, and broken promises. Each new accusation confirms an existing dissatisfaction until the opponent becomes the apparent embodiment of everything requiring correction. Then the election arrives. The voter casts his ballot, his preferred candidates prevail, and the object of his political labor has apparently been achieved. But what, precisely, has changed? The man he opposes remains president. The cost of food remains what it was yesterday. The national debt has not vanished. Foreign disputes continue without consulting the election returns.

Does his anger diminish now that it has found expression? Does he begin examining the conduct of those he has elected, or does he return to the same machinery that supplied his indignation, where fresh material awaits him at no additional charge? The mechanisms that rewarded outrage before the election have not been dismantled by the election itself. The politician has acquired an office, the broadcaster has retained an audience, and the voter, having discharged his anger at the ballot box, may purchase a fresh supply tomorrow morning.

Perhaps some will examine the consequences more closely. Others may lose interest until the next contest. Still others may discover that victory has merely furnished them with new reasons for dissatisfaction. As for the people I observed that morning, I cannot say whether any of these possibilities had entered their thoughts. Their expressions supplied no reliable evidence.

The Responsibility of Winning

The election is concluded, but the conditions that produced it remain. Those who advocate greater government intervention may sincerely desire cheaper food, affordable housing, and relief from economic hardship. I do not question their intentions. I question whether the instruments they propose will accomplish the purposes assigned to them.

A subsidy may reduce an immediate expense while transferring its cost elsewhere. A regulation may protect one interest while obstructing another. An intervention intended to correct a temporary difficulty may alter the incentives upon which future production depends. The government, having discovered that something is expensive, proposes to make it affordable by arranging for someone else to pay the difference. The expense, apparently, has been conquered by the simple expedient of changing its address.

Nor does leaving markets to adjust guarantee that every outcome will be desirable. The consequences of restraint deserve examination no less than those of intervention. The distinction lies between the declared intention of a policy and the actual results it produces. What appears sensible in a campaign speech must eventually confront budgets, competing interests, and the behavior of millions of people who were not consulted in its construction.

Before an election, political promises exist chiefly as words. Afterward, they become decisions whose consequences extend beyond those who approved them. The voter may imagine that he has purchased a particular result with his ballot. What he has actually done is confer authority upon someone who will attempt to produce that result through means whose consequences remain uncertain. The voter congratulates himself upon having acquired control of the government. His representative, meanwhile, has acquired something considerably more tangible.

You have won. You have acquired the authority you sought. Now come the decisions, the promises to be honored or abandoned, and the results that must eventually be explained. I did not vote for most of the people you elected, but I shall nevertheless participate in the consequences of their decisions.

So here we are, comrades. Let us see what our collective achievement produces.

The votes have been counted, the celebrations have begun to subside, and millions have returned to the ordinary business of earning a living. The price of groceries remains a concern, foreign disputes continue, and the national debt awaits no party’s permission to accumulate. The problems that furnished the election with its urgency have survived the election itself.

The politicians will act. The consequences will emerge in their own time. And tomorrow morning, the television will come on again.

I wonder what they will tell us to think about next.