I mean, for the people who inhabit DC, it is.

They are beset by just as powerful a propaganda machine as the average Fox News viewer, with the added strength that it can offer them genuine rewards if they obey and punishments if they do not. The conventional wisdom for a long time has been chiefly centered around tricking the people into voting for you via “marketing” as opposed to doing what they want you to do, and it is hard to break the habit and risk going down in socialism-colored flames when you are being massively enriched by the status quo and everyone around you is doing the same.