I’ve been perplexed by the liberal-conservative happiness gap for a long time, because it’s not explained by the obvious sociodemographics (age, race, gender, income, marital status) that could be theorized to account for it. However, here’s what puzzles me about it the most. Globally, the U.S. has relatively low happiness compared to other wealthy nations. The top five happiest nations in the world are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. These countries elect political leaders who would be considered WILDLY to the left of the typical American. This tells me that the partisan happiness gap is not attributable solely to the effects of harboring left-wing ideologies. So how do we reconcile a partisan happiness gap within the U.S. with the fact that globally, the most liberal countries are the happiest?