The Biggest Advantage in Politics Isn’t Money...

It’s Attention. And it's time.

One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is that political power comes primarily from money.

Money matters, of course. But I don’t think it’s the biggest advantage.

Attention is.

The people with the most to gain—or lose—from government decisions don’t check in every four years. They don’t wait until Election Day to start caring about politics. They follow legislation, appointments, court rulings, regulatory changes, committee hearings, and elections constantly because they understand something many ordinary Americans don’t have the luxury of understanding:

Politics is always happening.

Whether the average citizen is paying attention or not, laws are still being written. Agencies are still making decisions. Lobbyists are still meeting with lawmakers. Campaigns are still raising money. Every week, someone is shaping the rules that will eventually affect all of us.

Most Americans simply don’t have time to keep up.

I don’t say that as criticism. I say it with empathy.

If you’re working fifty hours a week, raising children, caring for elderly parents, trying to keep up with bills, and hoping nothing unexpected breaks this month, your priorities are obvious. You’re focused on survival.

When you finally get home, the last thing you want is another two hours reading policy proposals or comparing congressional voting records.

You want to breathe.

You want to watch a show.

You want your brain to stop working for a little while.

I understand that because I’m busy too.

The problem isn’t always that people are lazy.

The problem is that democracy rewards the people who never stop paying attention.

While millions of Americans understandably tune out politics for months—or years at a time—organized interests never do. Businesses, lobbying organizations, advocacy groups, political consultants, and wealthy donors are watching every major decision because every major decision affects them.

They know who is writing legislation.

They know who voted for it.

They know who blocked it.

They know what comes next.

Most voters don’t.

Instead, many people experience politics through headlines, viral videos, Facebook posts, or thirty-second television clips. That’s not because they’re incapable of learning more. It’s because someone else has already summarized the story before they had time to investigate it themselves.

That realization hit me during a conversation with a family member.

I was talking about Donald Trump, corruption, and Project 2025. Whatever someone’s opinion of those issues might be, I assumed they’d at least heard about the proposal.

They hadn’t.

Not because they were unintelligent.

Not because they didn’t care about America.

They simply hadn’t had time.

That conversation changed the way I think about political disagreement.

It’s easy to assume people are malicious when they support policies we oppose. Sometimes that’s true. Often it isn’t.

Often they’re simply making decisions with incomplete information because life has demanded their attention elsewhere.

I think that’s a distinction we don’t make nearly often enough.

We spend too much time insulting one another and not enough time asking why so many people feel disconnected from the political process in the first place.

The answer isn’t difficult to find.

Modern life is exhausting.

Most people don’t have staff members reading legislation for them. They don’t have researchers compiling reports. They don’t have entire organizations dedicated to protecting their interests.

Powerful institutions do.

That creates an uneven playing field before a single vote is cast.

This is why I believe civic education matters so much. Not because everyone needs to become a constitutional scholar, but because citizens should know where to find reliable information and how to verify what they’re being told.

Government websites publish voting records.

Budgets are public.

Bills are public.

Court opinions are public.

The information exists.

The challenge is finding the time—and developing the habit—to look beyond whatever happens to be trending on social media that day.

That’s harder than it sounds.

But I also think we’re living through one of those rare moments when paying attention matters more than ever.

Our political institutions are under attack. Trust in government institutions atrophies more every day that Trump is in office. Public discourse has become increasingly polarized. Every election is described as the most important election of our lifetime, until the next one comes along.

It’s tempting to become cynical.

It’s tempting to check out.

I understand that temptation.

But I think that’s exactly what many powerful interests are counting on.

The less attention ordinary citizens pay, the easier it becomes for organized interests like the Heritage Foundation to shape policy without meaningful public scrutiny.

That’s why I don’t think civic engagement ends after voting.

Voting is the minimum.

The harder work is paying attention between elections.

It’s reading beyond the headline.

It’s questioning the stories that perfectly confirm our biases.

It’s looking up a voting record before sharing a meme about it.

It’s recognizing that democracy isn’t a spectator sport.

I don’t expect everyone to become a political junkie.

I certainly don’t expect people struggling to make ends meet to spend every evening studying public policy.

But I do believe each of us can make a little more room for curiosity.

A little more room for verification.

A little more room for asking, “Is that actually true?”

Because attention is power.

And if ordinary citizens surrender that power entirely, someone else will always be happy to exercise it on our behalf.