American politicians waste the time and money of working Americans by claiming they can solve problems they cannot solve. I show that the Sanders left does not have an electoral strategy that can produce a governing majority. Left-wing media relies, economically, on maintaining hope and therefore it denies this reality. I detail the policy failures of the Trump administration, and I argue that the right is not able to properly embed its critique of American culture in a rigorous analysis of the economy. I argue that the centrist establishment denies the need for economic change, framing its opponents as nostalgists for twentieth-century authoritarian movements or victims of fake news. As Americans become more resentful, they tend to give their votes and money to organizations that cater to feelings of frustration. Politics becomes a means of managing psychological distress rather than a vehicle for delivering change. The politicians that succeed electorally are the politicians that provide psychological benefits rather than discrete results. The left and the right pretend to have solutions they don’t have, while the center uses widespread fear of authoritarianism to bully Americans into continuing to support it.