Voting as Self-Expression

Kevin D. Williamson writes for National Review, here about voters who are "expressive" rather than "instrumental."

A great many city-dwellers are dumb enough, and sufficiently poisoned by preening moral self-regard, to believe that voting for a mayor based on some irrelevant demographic characteristic — color of his skin, whom she prefers sharing a bed with — is an act of virtue rather than an act of bad citizenship. These people don’t really vote with what’s good for their city in mind; rather, they are members of the Lena Dunham school of democratic participation, those whose vote is primarily an expressive rather than instrumental matter: “What does my vote say about me, and about which character I’d be if I were a character on Girls?

If what John Hinderaker wrote that we posted yesterday is true, maybe self-expression is all your vote is good for. I'm certain it seems that way to many people, and many others cannot be bothered.