On one level, a poor person, unemployed worker, or opioid addict who votes away health care is just giving money to the rich that they do not need and perhaps will not even notice. On another level, such a voter is changing the currency of politics from achievement to suffering, from gain to pain, helping a leader of choice establish a regime of sadopopulism. Such a voter can believe that he or she has chosen who administers their pain, and can fantasize that this leader will hurt enemies still more. The politics of eternity converts pain to meaning, and then meaning back into more pain. In this respect, America under President Trump was becoming like Russia. In strategic relativism, Russia hurt but aimed to make others hurt more — or at least to convince the Russian population that others were hurting more. Russian citizens took the pain of European and American sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine because they believed that Russia was in a glorious campaign against Europe and America and that Europeans and Americans were getting their just deserts for their decadence and aggression. A fictional justification for war creates real pain that then justifies the continuation of a real war.
— The Road to Unfreedom (Timothy Snyder), Loc. 3967–75