Politics & Power Quote by Mark Skousen

Skousen’s line lands like a slap at the comforting myth that politics is mainly a staffing problem. It’s not “throw the bums out,” it’s “stop hiring them.” The intent is corrective and a little accusatory: if leadership is consistently disappointing, the electorate isn’t merely a victim of bad options, it’s a co-author of the outcome. Coming from an economist, the argument carries a familiar market logic. Leaders are the supply; voters are the demand. As long as the demand rewards short-term gains, tribal payback, and performative outrage, the political market will keep producing candidates optimized for exactly that.

The subtext is even sharper: calls for “better leaders” can be a form of moral outsourcing. People want the catharsis of blaming corruption, media, parties, or “the system” without interrogating their own incentives and habits. Skousen points the finger at civic character: attention spans, tolerance for complexity, willingness to be bored by policy, readiness to punish demagoguery even when it flatters “our side.” It’s an indictment of political consumption - voting, yes, but also what we click, share, excuse, and reward between elections.

Contextually, this fits a late-20th/early-21st century frustration with entrenched incumbency and polarized electorates: the sense that rotation doesn’t equal renewal. Skousen’s provocation isn’t that individuals don’t matter, but that institutions respond to the median behavior. Change the voter, and you change what becomes viable. The line works because it refuses the easy villain and makes the reader the plot twist.