I was thinking of the Romantic tradition in which artists suffer for their work. There's an episode of the Gary Shandling Show, too, that illustrates the point. A comedian writer for the show suddenly finds happiness with a girlfriend, and immediately his writing goes downhill. So Shandling roots for the relationship to fail, so the writer can go back to sublimating his misery for the show's benefit.

I'm not saying conservative demagogues are "stupid." I'm saying it's damned annoying that misanthropes or pessimists who are aware of the existential problem and of the structural injustices in society have their revolutionary energy siphoned and wasted by such hucksters. It's a waste of good subversive sentiment.