I could spend a lot of time thinking about this line:

After all, if voters were truly selfish, they would negotiate amicable
settlements and take what they could get, instead of zealously fighting
the same battles year after year.

It was written by Bryan Caplan, who writes with Arnold Kling on one of my favorite blogs – EconLog, for a future Washington Post article.

Get it? The more strongly you feel about something, the more you should be willing to settle for less in a negotiation.