One account of what political elections are for

From David Brooks's new blog:

What do you do after your party wins an election? In a forthcoming study for the journal Computers in Human Behavior, Patrick Markey and Charlotte Markey compared Internet searches in red and blue states after the 2006 and 2010 elections. They found that the number of searchers for pornography was much higher right after the 2010 election (a big G.O.P. year) than after 2006 (a big Democratic year). Conversely, people in blue states searched for porn at much higher rates after 2006 than after 2010. One explanation is this: After winning a vicarious status competition, people (predominantly men, I guess) tend to seek out pornography.

And David's new book is here.