Politics & Power Quote by John Podhoretz

Politics has a cruel way of turning a single bad night into a running joke, and Podhoretz is naming that feedback loop with the blunt confidence of a pundit’s proverb. “Losing begets losing” isn’t just about morale; it’s about how modern political ecosystems metabolize defeat. A loss doesn’t sit quietly in the record books. It becomes a headline, a donor memo, an opposition talking point, a cable-news chyron, a tweetable “pattern.” Soon the candidate isn’t merely behind; they’re “non-viable.”

The intent is tactical: treat momentum as a material resource. In a world where campaigns are permanent and perception is currency, the appearance of strength can be as decisive as strength itself. Podhoretz’s rule of thumb implies that voters, donors, and party elites often behave less like deliberative citizens and more like risk managers. They don’t just evaluate platforms; they hedge against embarrassment and wasted investment. If you look like you can’t win, people stop helping you win, which makes the initial diagnosis self-fulfilling.

The subtext is a warning about how little patience the system has for learning curves, second acts, or long-term persuasion. “Begets” carries a kind of grim inevitability, as if defeat is hereditary. That’s also the critique: politics isn’t always a marketplace of ideas; it’s a confidence game shaped by narrative gravity. Once the story hardens into “loser,” every setback is interpreted as proof, and every success as an exception that won’t last.