Quote of the Day (Martha Gellhorn, on the Power of Public Opinion)

“Public opinion, though slow as lava, in the end forces governments towards more sanity, more justice. My heroes and heroines are all private citizens.” — American journalist and novelist Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998), The View From the Ground (1988)

Quote of the Day (Godfrey Hodgson, on Presidents As Traders in Political Capital)

“Every modern president is a trader, entering office with a stock of political capital. If he were to sit back and attempt to live on the income from it, he would soon starve. So he must venture into the political market and trade. He proposes legislation, handles crises, applies leadership where required, and tries to avoid damaging associations. His record is observed and evaluated by Washington insiders and, in turn, transmitted to the wider public by the media. At the same time, polls recycle public opinion back to Washington, increasing or decreasing the president’s political capital.”— English journalist and historian Godfrey Hodgson (1934-2021), “What Makes a Great President?”, The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2000

Quote of the Day (Gore Vidal, on Public Opinion)

“At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.” —American novelist, essayist, and playwright Gore Vidal (1925-2012), “Sex and the Law,” originally published in Partisan Review (Summer 1965), republished in Homage to Daniel Shays: Collected Essays,1952-1972 (1972)

Vidal wrote the above not only when tracking public opinion was still in the early stages of being considered a “science,” but also when most people still accepted the word of official sources. It was also, critically, before the current sledge of digital disinformation.

The “chaos” Vidal referred to more than a half century ago certainly proved to be even more the case in 2016 and 2020. Why did we expect the 2022 midterms to be any different?

At this point, the disparity between voter surveys and the final election results is so wide that the entire polling industry should close up shop. Too many prospective voters won’t answer survey questions because they regard them as either an infringement of their privacy or a diabolical plot by the “progressive media.”

How can pollsters and the party handlers who feed off them claim any validity in their results, given these attitudes?

Quote of the Day (John Stuart Mill, on the Power of Public Opinion)

“To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.”— English political philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Considerations on Representative Government (1861)

Quote of the Day (W.H. Auden, on Freud’s Influence on the Man-on-the-Street)

“Today, thanks to [Sigmund] Freud, the man-on-the-street knows (to quote by an inaccurate memory from Punch) that, when he thinks a thing, the thing he thinks is not the thing he thinks he thinks, but only the thing he thinks he thinks he thinks.” —English poet-critic W.H. Auden (1907-1973), “Sigmund Freud,” The New Republic, October 6, 1952

Quote of the Day (William Hazlitt, on ‘Unjust’ Public Opinion)

“Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.”—English journalist and literary critic William Hazlitt (1778-1830), Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1837 edition).

The image accompanying this post is a self-portrait of the great essayist, who was born on this date 235 years ago, but whose prose reads as startling and fresh as anything written today.  Like public opinion, literary reputation can be unjust and capricious, but somehow Hazlitt has continued to attract readers attracted as much by his variety of subjects (e.g., Shakespeare, boxing, politics) as by his darting, dazzling style.