The Median Voter is a Maoist - by Nicholas Decker
Homo Economicus
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The Median Voter is a Maoist<br>Seeking truth from facts
Nicholas Decker<br>Aug 03, 2026
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What the American voter wants is impossible. Social Security is on track to be insolvent by 2032. What should we do about it? We could increase taxes to pay for the benefits, but 80% of voters are against that. We could cut benefits to match the taxes we have, but 90% of voters are against it. We could move the retirement age back, but 74% of voters oppose it. We could borrow money to pay for it, but 76% of voters are against that too. This is not simply different samples at different time, because these all come from the same poll a couple months ago. Relatedly, the American voter thinks the government is spending too much, but should increase spending on every government program while simultaneously cutting taxation and shrinking the size of the government.<br>The best defense of the voters’ beliefs are that they think someone else can be made to pay for it. It’s only a partial defense, because the things they scapegoat – on the Left, the billionaires, on the Right, foreigners – cannot pay for more than a pittance of what they want done. But even this is not an adequate explanation, because voters demand the impossible.<br>Consider Obamacare, which I wrote about at length last month. The Affordable Care Act banned charging higher prices to people with preexisting conditions. If you do this, however, sick people will select in and healthy people will select out. To have insurance exist at all, you need people to be compelled to purchase, rather than allow them to opt out when they are healthy and opt back in later when they are sick.<br>The ban on discriminating on preexisting conditions was extremely popular with the voters, and so we kept it. The requirement that you purchase health insurance was not, and so we zeroed it out in 2017. These policies are not something where you can get one but not the other – they are the same policy, fundamentally inextricable. And yet, we did A which leads to B and simply say that it will lead to C.<br>I think the better explanation is that the median voter in America is a Maoist. They do not believe in tradeoffs. They believe that, if only everyone were good and honest and working toward the right goals, good things will happen. That politicians disagree with each other is simply a sign that they are corrupt. If the people are good and sincere, then we can simply do things and it will all work out okay.<br>This post is brought to you by Mechanize, Inc. They are hiring for a variety of positions, including software engineers. I encourage you to apply here.<br>This sort of attitude once ruled China. I do not call the American voter’s ideology Maoist as simple namecalling. It is just literally true. Mao Zedong’s program was that it was only the ideological sincerity which was needed for success to come. This ideological sincerity had magical properties. Consider one of the Three Constantly Read Articles, “The Foolish Old Man who Removed the Mountains”. There is a Chinese story about an old man who lived near the Taihang and Wangwu mountains. He wanted to travel, but the mountains lay in his way. So, he called his sons to him, and they began to dig up the mountains with hoes. A Wise Old Man comes and rebukes him for doing an impossible task, but the Foolish Old Man responds: “When I die, my sons will carry on; when they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons, and so on to infinity. High as they are, the mountains cannot grow any higher and with every bit we dig, they will be that much lower. Why can’t we clear them away?” And so he and his sons resume digging.<br>It is not the case, however, that he and his sons did indeed clear away the mountains. Instead, God was touched by his conviction, and sent down two angels who carried away the mountains. Mao suggests, then, that there are two mountains the Chinese people wish to dig up – imperialism and feudalism – and if they dig them up without rest, then they will touch God’s heart and do the impossible. Mao is not so primitive as to suggest that a literal deity will come down and do it – instead, “our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people”.
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The great disaster of Maoism – the Great Leap Forward, with its tens of millions starved – came because Mao thought enthusiasm meant that constraints could be ignored, and that simply intending for something to happen was the same as doing what was necessary for it to happen.<br>Before the Great Leap Forward, state planning was run by Chen Yun, who was by all accounts a serious, soberminded individual. It was he who coined the phrase “crossing the river by feeling the stones”; I disagree with communism as an economic system because I believe it to be inefficient, but there is also no doubt in my mind that competent administration set on achieving possible goals can...