THE TYRANNY OF CHOICE: HOW WE MISTOOK OPTIONS FOR FREEDOM—AND LOST BOTH

Let’s start here: Donald Trump told Americans that 11-year-old girls don’t need 30 dolls.

And for once, a surprising number of people—on both ends of the political spectrum—nodded in agreement.

He was trying to deflect from his tariff war. He was trying to change the subject from rising consumer prices. He was almost certainly not channeling any meaningful economic philosophy when he said it. But he said it anyway: “I don’t think a beautiful baby girl needs—that’s 11 years old—needs 30 dolls.” And in that instant, something hit a nerve.

Because whether he knew it or not—and let’s be honest, he probably didn’t—he tapped into a growing exhaustion. A cultural fatigue. A kind of silent surrender that happens when the American people are handed one too many menus, one too many algorithms, one too many impossible choices, and are simply too damn tired to make another decision. And so, we don’t.

We look for someone to make it for us.

That instinct—fueled by decades of consumerism, centuries of liberalism, and the last nine years of civic whiplash—is why Trump’s authoritarian style doesn’t repel the way we expect it to. It reassures. It soothes. It simplifies. And maybe, just maybe, it’s because deep down, Americans are starting to realize that the thing we were taught to worship—choice itself—might not be the freedom we thought it was.

What I’m about to suggest isn’t a policy correction or a rhetorical reframing. It’s something far more disruptive: the idea that the very foundation of our national identity—the belief that freedom means more options—is broken.

I. The End of Choice as a Virtue

In her recent book The Age of Choice, historian Sophia Rosenfeld gives this moment a name: “choice idolatry.” That’s not a casual phrase. It’s a diagnosis.

Rosenfeld, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, describes our cultural obsession with options—our belief that freedom equals the ability to pick from a wide range of possibilities—as a relatively modern construct. And one that’s beginning to show cracks. “Choice,” she writes, “has revealed itself as a hollow source of identity and a distraction from what really matters.”

She’s not talking about politics alone. She’s talking about how freedom itself—once understood in terms of justice, dignity, and the rule of law—has been reduced to a lifestyle brand. To browsing. To swiping.

And when the act of choosing becomes divorced from the meaning of the choice, it becomes not empowering but paralyzing. It becomes not a symbol of liberty but a burden we’re desperate to offload.

Enter the man with the crown.

II. The Strongman as Concierge

Trump’s political persona—“I alone can fix it”—isn’t just an expression of egomania. It’s a product-market fit. A match for a society adrift in options. His governing style—rewarding allies, punishing enemies, cutting through regulation, gutting institutions—offers a crude clarity. You don’t have to debate. You don’t have to weigh nuance. Just follow the man pointing.

And that’s exactly why his throwaway line about the 11-year-old girl with 30 dolls stuck the landing. It wasn’t policy—it was permission. Permission to want less. To feel overwhelmed. To let someone else decide what matters.

And when that feels easier than thinking—when “just tell me what to do” becomes the national prayer—democracy starts to hemorrhage.

We are not choosing. We are outsourcing.

And that’s dangerous.

But it’s also understandable.

Because, as Rosenfeld explains, this isn’t just about Donald Trump. It’s about a 300-year-old story we’ve been telling ourselves: that humans, unlike anteaters or mice, thrive on choice. That the more options we have, the freer we are. That the peak of civilization is not justice, or equality, or decency—but variety.

That story, it turns out, might be fiction.

III. A Brief History of Too Many Options

In the late 17th century, a woman walked into a store and was overwhelmed—not by need, but by fabric. Calicos. Ornamental cottons from India. Bright colors. Flowered prints. Hung from ceiling to floor in a “simulation of women’s copious skirts.” It was the beginning of something new: shopping as seduction.

Rosenfeld describes this moment as the pivot point. Where buying stopped being about sustenance and started being about identity. You weren’t just acquiring goods—you were expressing taste. Distinction. Personality. Autonomy.

Over the next century, catalogs offered choices that could be fantasized about. Restaurants expanded menus. And, crucially, all of it became available to more than just the wealthy. Choice was democratizing. Or at least, that’s how it felt.

But with it came anxiety.

The Tea Purchaser’s Guide. The Lady’s Companion. Early consumer guides warned readers against choosing with “fancy” or “whim.” Novels began to portray the female coquette—she who browsed, flirted, refused to commit—as a cautionary tale.

What started as liberation became a moral crisis. Too many options. Too much power in the hands of the chooser. And in a pattern we’d see again and again, the blame for social decay was projected onto women. Because they were visible. They were buying. And they were choosing.

By the time the Parisian bistro was commonplace and the shopping revolution was underway, the consumer brain had been wired: to choose is to live.

And to not choose? To be stuck in indecision? That was worse than tyranny.

So we chose. And chose. And chose. Until we didn’t want to anymore.

The anxiety of picking a pair of shoes became the anxiety of picking a president. The venue changed. The stakes escalated. But the fatigue? That stayed.

IV. When Choosing Stops Feeling Free

Rosenfeld’s book is clear: freedom didn’t always mean variety. The idea that liberty and choice are synonymous is modern. And fragile. And maybe now—terminal.

In 1872, the Yorkshire town of Pontefract introduced the secret ballot. Before that, voting was a public act—a noisy, often corrupt celebration of alliances and favors. With secrecy came dignity, yes, but also something new: isolation. Now you were alone in a booth. Your choice wasn’t part of a social ritual; it was an individual burden. A quiet judgment of your values. Or lack thereof.

John Stuart Mill saw the danger. In 1861, he warned that voters might begin to treat their ballot “as an expression of personal interest or some mean feeling in [their] own mind.” That without communal accountability, the vote could become selfish. Capricious. A matter of taste, not of principle.

Sound familiar?

It should. Because we’re seeing it now.

When you treat voting like choosing a flavor of cereal, you end up with cereal-box candidates. Shiny packaging. Empty calories.

And eventually, you stop showing up at the grocery store.

Let’s not undersell it. To say that more choice doesn’t make us more free is not a footnote. It’s a rebellion. It’s an argument against the operating system of modern life—the belief that every new lane on the highway, every new flavor in the freezer aisle, every new swipe-left possibility is proof that we’re doing freedom right.

It’s not. It’s noise. And it’s what Sophia Rosenfeld calls “choice idolatry”—the worship of possibility, even when the altar is empty.

V. The Modern Condition: Option Fatigue

Netflix. Tinder. Amazon. Spotify. We are surrounded by options. Drowning in them.

And what started as empowerment has become torment.

The algorithm, like the strongman, promises to make it easier. “Here’s what you’ll like.” “Other people chose this.” “Trust us.”

But every click is a gamble. Every swipe is a judgment. Every option is a demand to decide. And the moral stakes—if there are any—are buried in the fine print.

Which is why Trump’s doll comment hit a nerve. Not because we agree with him. But because we’re exhausted. And he sounded like someone willing to make the choice for us.

VI. When Choice Fails Justice: The Case of Abortion

Nowhere is the weakness of “choice” more visible than in the fight for reproductive rights.

In the late 1960s, feminists championed “My Body, My Choice” as a rallying cry. It framed abortion as a matter of personal liberty. Of autonomy. Of freedom.

And it worked.

Until it didn’t.

In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And suddenly, the consumer-language of “choice” was no match for the moral-language of “life.”

Rosenfeld points out the trap: the pro-choice movement leaned on a civil rights argument—government non-interference—but not a social or economic one. It didn’t always speak to access, or inequality, or systemic injustice. It framed abortion like a product, available to those with resources. And that gave opponents an opening.

But something changed.

During the 2024 election cycle, Michelle Obama gave a speech that reframed the debate—not as a matter of “choice,” but of “care.” She imagined a world where women were denied medical treatment. Where husbands were begging for help. Where this wasn’t about liberty—it was about survival.

Kamala Harris echoed her. Describing women suffering miscarriages who couldn’t get emergency treatment. Describing families in distress. Describing systems that were failing—not by accident, but by design.

And suddenly, we weren’t talking about options anymore. We were talking about values. About what mattered. About what we owed one another.

That’s a different conversation.

And it’s one we need more of.

VII. The Existential Answer: Choosing What We Ought

Jean-Paul Sartre, in 1946, described freedom not as doing what you want—but as constructing your life, like a work of art, through the choices you make. Every decision, he said, defines you. Every action is a brushstroke.

Sophia Rosenfeld updates that idea. “Freedom,” she writes, “could be reconfigured as the chance to do what one ought rather than simply what one desired.”

That’s not tyranny. That’s responsibility.

If we say freedom is no longer defined by quantity of choice but by quality of judgment, then we’re not just adjusting our expectations. We’re rewriting the American contract. The old version said: ‘Give me liberty, and by liberty I mean an infinite menu.’ The new one says: ‘Give me liberty, and by liberty I mean wisdom, principle, and moral weight.

And it might be the only way to save freedom from itself.

Because what we’re living through now—this firehose of options, this collapse of context, this fatigue masquerading as liberty—is not sustainable. And it’s not freedom.

It’s distraction.

Freedom isn’t walking into a megastore. It’s an Afghan woman in 2014 raising her ink-stained finger to the sky after voting.

And if we don’t rebuild our values—if we don’t teach ourselves to distinguish between good choices and bad ones—we will continue to outsource our will. To algorithms. To strongmen. To systems that reduce us to impulse and consumption.

The only thing worse than losing your freedom is handing it over voluntarily.

VIII. The New Definition of Freedom

This isn’t a call for fewer options. It’s a call to redefine what freedom even is. Not as the ability to swipe endlessly—but as the courage to decide what matters. Not as infinite variety—but as moral clarity in community. And not as being left alone—but as showing up for one another.

It’s a reminder that democracy isn’t a buffet—it’s a potluck. You bring something. You share something. And you stay long enough to clean up.

So maybe it’s time to stop fetishizing choice. Stop treating freedom like a shopping spree. Stop acting like all decisions are created equal.

Because when we don’t choose—when we look away, swipe past, or let someone else pick—the consequences aren’t theoretical. They show up as National Guard troops deployed on American soil without state consent. As civil rights groups losing nonprofit status with the stroke of a pen. As a 400-page plan called Project 2025 that rewrites the rules of the republic while we binge the next season.

The choice between Netflix shows isn’t the same as the choice between silence and courage. The choice between 30 dolls and none isn’t the same as the choice between dignity and authoritarianism.

Some choices are trivial. Some are defining. But the most urgent one of all—the one we keep avoiding—is this:

What kind of freedom do we actually want?