Trump Endorses Jennifer Balkcom for North Carolina's 11th Congressional District
Political Endorsements Are Not Miracles, They Are Markets
A celebrated figure blessing a new candidate in North Carolina’s 11th District is less an act of civic piety than a bid in a crowded political marketplace, with costs the public must count as carefully as any trader’s bill.
A well-known political leader has lately announced, with great honour and warmer adjectives, an endorsement of a new candidate to represent North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, after the previous nominee ended a re‑election bid. The candidate, in turn, declares herself incredibly grateful, proud to fight for the people of Western North Carolina, eager to make life more affordable for hardworking families, and to rebuild after a recent disaster. Nothing in this exchange is unusual: one offers his name and influence, the other offers loyalty and slogans of public service. Yet what passes in a moment on a public platform is in truth a contract of some intricacy, in which both parties seek advantage under the applauding cover of patriotism.
When I wrote in The Wealth of Nations that we do not get our dinner from the benevolence of the butcher, I did not mean that the butcher is a bad man, only that he is a man. So it is with the political endorser. He does not offer his support from pure benevolence, but from his regard to his own interest: the strengthening of his faction, the proof of his continuing influence, the shaping of who will owe him gratitude in the next legislature. The candidate, likewise, courts such favour not because praise is pleasant (though it is), but because it may conduct resources, volunteers, and votes. Self‑interest, when confined within the rules of justice, may coordinate a market; but when draped in moral finery, it must be watched with more than usual care.
An election resembles a market in this respect: there is a higgling and bargaining, only the price is not measured in money, but in attention, allegiance, and probability of office. Endorsements, in this view, are like a large purchaser entering the bazaar and announcing that all his followers should buy from a particular stall. The visible benefit to the chosen trader is immediate and concentrated; the cost is scattered among small sellers whose wares are now neglected, and among buyers whose range of choice is quietly narrowed. The voter pays, not in coin, but in the diminished variety of serious options, in the slackening of competition, in the subtle pressure to follow a leader rather than judge a representative.
In The Wealth of Nations I counselled the most suspicious attention toward the petitions of merchants, who often contrive regulations that reduce competition while parading as benefactors of the public. Political endorsements deserve a cousin to that suspicion. They may indeed inform: a busy citizen, with little leisure to examine each new aspirant to Congress, might rationally use the signal of an endorsement as one imperfect guide among many. But they also resemble the attempt of a powerful trader to control the channel of distribution. The great danger is not that any one such act is monstrous; it is that a series of them, unexamined, turns a contest of many into an audition before a few.
The impartial spectator, whose judgment I described in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, would not be carried away by warm phrases about wonderful people and patriotic banners. He would ask a small number of plain questions. Is the endorser primarily securing the interest of the public, or his own authority over the party’s future? Does the candidate, in receiving this blessing, gain independence to serve Western North Carolina, or acquire a new dependence which must later be repaid in quiet votes and obedient silence? Would we praise the same behaviour if it were performed by an opponent rather than an ally? Praise-worthiness, not the loudness of the praise, is the proper object of our esteem.
There is, however, a more charitable construction that our spectator must also entertain. The previous nominee has withdrawn; the machinery of representation in that district requires some substitute; uncertainty unsettles not only factions, but the labouring poor who depend on predictable law for their daily bread. A timely endorsement may reduce confusion, concentrate support, and allow the political market to clear with fewer delays and fewer temptations to intrigue. Whatever extends the market of ideas and candidates enriches the public; whatever leaves only one path to office, through the favour of a single patron, impoverishes it. The act before us sits uneasily between these two descriptions, and it is the continuing conduct of both endorser and endorsed that will determine on which side it finally falls.
I remain unsure how far this particular endorsement will compress genuine competition or merely channel it; that uncertainty itself is a reminder that we must watch such transactions not with credulity, but with that cool, interested attention which a prudent buyer brings to every crowded market.
From the works cited
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations — Suspect the merchant's petition: when businesspeople advocate a regulation, look for the conspiracy against the public.
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations — The division of labour is limited by the extent of the market: whatever widens the market — roads, ports, peace, cheap carriage, open trade — deepens specialization and enriches.
- The Theory of Moral Sentiments — Judge conduct by the impartial spectator: what would a well-informed, disinterested observer feel about this action?