Instant gratification emerged in the late 2010s as a niche media term related to how dopamine affects the brain, where individuals choose to achieve their immediate wants without regard for long-term fulfillment.
While instant gratification is most commonly associated with social media and low attention spans, it’s beginning to impact other aspects of daily life. By prioritizing short-term satisfaction, many abandon serious consideration of the future. Unfortunately, this trend has made its way into the functioning of American politics.
When it comes to politics, instant gratification is relevant in the context of bill and policy debates that put short-term satisfaction over long-term solutions. In times of economic or military crises, short-term solutions can be effective, but it’s important to consider the reality that short-term success can lead to long-term uncertainty.
Politicians, in all levels of government, tend to focus on these short-term results in order to garner favor from voters. With the exclusion of Supreme Court justices, every member of government will be up for reelection in their career, and they need to have and maintain a high approval rating from their constituents to serve another term.
Voters generally won’t reelect politicians they think haven’t made improvements during their time in office, making most politicians feel like they don’t stand a chance at reelection if they haven’t made immediate change and improvements. A prevailing fear on Capitol Hill is that voters won’t recognize actions that benefit the long term if they don’t reflect in the short term, and will punish representatives for not heralding instantaneous reform.
Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 New Deal to end the Great Depression shows the importance of not letting the desire for immediate satisfaction dominate political discussion. The New Deal set up long-term solutions to the Great Depression after insufficient attempts by Roosevelt’s predecessor, President Herbert Hoover. While Roosevelt could have sent out blank checks to every American citizen to allow their finances to recover, he considered that such short-term solutions would only lead to raging inflation and economic turmoil in the future. Instead, Roosevelt turned to policies that would help Americans in the present while still investing in the future.
By contrast, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress approved an emergency aid package that gave $1,200 to every eligible adult in the U.S., and President Joe Biden sent out even more checks later in 2021. These checks evidently favored speed over accuracy, with $1.4 billion in checks going to deceased people. While the act hasn’t appeared to have any significant long-term effects, abandoning accuracy for haste sets a dangerous precedent for dealing with riskier situations.
While the checks were helpful in the short term and approved by over 75% of citizens, they didn’t help solve the long-term problem of the pandemic’s impact on American life and the economy.
Climate change is another pressing issue that’s become largely ignored due to instant gratification. Climate change — the shifts in temperature patterns over time — is something that many members of Congress, specifically conservatives, have either delayed dealing with or outright denied the existence of.
Many Democrats in Congress have urged the government to take more action before climate change is irreversible in roughly four and a half years. While there are many facets to conservative’s opposition to working to thwart climate change, many believe, despite overwhelming evidence, that global warming isn’t an urgent issue and can be put off for years to come without any danger.
A 2023 Pew Research Center study found that many who are suspicious of or deny climate change don’t see any urgency in the issue. This commonly held view of apathy towards the problem — because change won’t be seen immediately — exemplifies how immediate desires for satisfaction have a chokehold on government officials and American citizens alike.
Instant gratification is the root of why many grave issues are left unaddressed and unsolved. Many favor ignoring the danger of the future since they don’t believe anything is wrong at the moment and, therefore, don’t see any immediate value in taking action.
While people usually don’t consciously prioritize the short term over the long term, they often forget to consider long-term effects when making decisions, a trend noticed by AP U.S. Government and Political Psychology teacher Andrew Sonnabend.
“When it comes to politics, people don’t look at the long term, and they always say, ‘Well, what does it do for me right now?’” Sonnabend said. “That doesn’t always turn out the best.”
President Donald Trump has promised to enact significant tariffs on foreign imports, placing 25% tariffs on all Mexican and Canadian goods and a 10% tariff on Chinese goods, the United States’ three biggest trading partners. Despite massive quantities of evidence proving these tariffs will hurt the economy, President Trump has stood on his promise of placing tariffs on multiple countries worldwide, calling tariffs “the greatest thing ever invented.”
However, Trump and his allies, such as Tesla founder and billionaire Elon Musk, admit that though Trump’s economic plan will benefit the American people in the long term — which is only speculation — it could lead to significant short-term struggles. In October 2024, Musk conceded that the Trump administration’s economic policies would “involve some temporary hardship” and agreed with a post on X stating that the tariffs would lead to a financial “storm” that could cause the stock market to crash.
Just days after signing these tariffs into law, Trump said on Truth Social that consumers would experience “pain” but that the eventual results would be “worth the price that must be paid.”
While it seems promising that the upcoming Trump administration will prioritize long-term economic success, this raises the question of whether the short-term economic damage and uncertainty will be worth a faulty and unpredictable result, especially since the country is experiencing strong economic growth under President Biden’s policies.
This situation showcases the complexity of short-term vs. long-term prioritization in politics, as favoring immediate satisfaction over the future will hurt the country, while the consequences of ignoring the short-term can be just as harmful. The Trump administration’s focus on the long term at the cost of the short term isn’t something frequently seen in American politics. Still, it’s just as dangerous as typical instant gratification.
More people need to speak out about the importance of both improving conditions in the short term and securing the future for the next generations. American society’s need for instant gratification is a worrying trend that must be acknowledged and prevented before it takes an even stronger hold on our government.
