No, this is not the most important election of your lifetime

OPINION:

Every election cycle, some jokers try to sell the public on the idea that this is the most important election in history to boost television ratings or (now) clicks. Every cycle, they turn out to be wrong.

In the United States, at least, elections — and the governments they produce — are not leading indicators of public sentiment; they are lagging indicators. Elections simply provide a quantitative measure of what the voters believe and preserve. The governments that emerge from elections merely establish order and discipline in those areas that the American people have emotionally and intellectually pioneered.

John Adams captured this relationship between sentiments and action when he said, “The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people” long before the first shot at Lexington. The country was already divided by the time the shooting started at Fort Sumter. The majority of the people had already made up their minds about civil rights long before President John F. Kennedy’s assassination closed the question (in the affirmative) for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In practice, this means that elections in and of themselves aren’t really that important; they simply measure extant sentiment. Moreover, the fortunate reality in the United States is that any single election — no matter how freighted with import by the contestants and observers — is rarely dispositive. Power is diffused between branches and levels of government and diffused temporally, with different offices being elected (or appointed in the case of the judiciary) at different times.

All of that is intentional and designed specifically to ensure that the government remains a servant (albeit a troublesome one) and not a master.

The other practical reality that flows from this catawampus arrangement is that the winning side of any election usually winds up disappointed because they don’t get everything they wanted, and the losing side winds up pleasantly surprised that things didn’t turn out as bad as they feared.

The winners — and losers — are always certain that the victory in the current election will bring significant and enduring changes to the nation. They are usually wrong. It is important to recognize what politics and elections are and what they aren’t. They are not about the soul of the nation. They are not about healing anything. They are not about some grand statement about the arc of justice.

Elections are simply about how we as a society decide who gets to use the state’s coercive power to encourage some activities and discourage or outlaw others. As noted previously, elections are usually just a measurement of citizens’ sentiments.

To really change the world, one would need to change the hearts and minds of people first.

Each election is sold as the most important election in the history of the republic. Obviously, all of them cannot be, and probability suggests that this one won’t be either. Political defeats are temporary, and so are political victories. It is unwise to treat them as anything else.

• Michael McKenna is an award-winning columnist at The Washington Times who has been involved in his share — and a few others’ shares — of election defeats.