The simple argument is the trade. Across more than a dozen contemporary cases, voter populations have agreed to trade the material future of their political communities for the maintenance of a fantasy past. The trade is voluntary. The costs include dead soldiers, dismantled institutions, scientific apparatus lost across decades, and democratic procedures captured by movements that openly oppose them. Voters know the costs. They have decided that the costs are worth it. The difficult argument comes after that recognition. Once you accept that the trade is voluntary, you cannot organize around the assumption that the voters have been tricked. You also cannot organize around the assumption that better information will change their minds. The voters know what they are doing. They are participants in a transaction they understand at the level that matters to them. They are buying something. Today we ask what the something is, and what it would take to offer them a better deal.
