April 9, 2025

…it is a denial of the entire experience of the twentieth century to suppose that people would reject their passions in favour of their interests.

— Raymond Aron (1905–1983), French philosopher, sociologist, and political scientist, in Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Bloody Panico! Or Whatever Happened to the Tory Party? (London: 2024), Chapter 2

What has been your experience in this regard? Do your constituents vote in their own best interests—or to indulge some passion, settle a score, or feed a resentment?

I suspect the rise in social media has only aggravated this phenomenon—platforms are exceptionally good at stoking passions on a scale we’ve never seen before.