is it bad politics, or are all politics bad?
I don’t really want to write about politics. It kind of makes me angry.
This subject seems to suck the sense out of what otherwise would be intelligent people. At the very least, I think politics short-circuits the part of our brains that stops our mouths from saying stupid shit. Or our fingers from typing similar nonsense. Need proof? Just click your Facebook app and you’ll see a flood of it.
I do recognize the lunacy of this particular presidential election. We have a slate of candidates on both sides, all but one of whom could easily be featured on an episode of Cops. The other one spends most of his time yelling at the other Muppets from the balcony. And, in full disclosure, I do find it entertaining to talk with friends about the race. We have different views on many of the issues, but one thing we all agree on is that we better buckle up because our political system has given us the trailer for a four-year shit show. Some people might argue it’s more of a sequel or an epic. And they might be right.
But I wish we would stop being surprised when we discover our politicians lie. Really? They all lie all the time. I didn’t know him, nor have I read much of anything about him, but I’ll bet “Mostly Honest Abe” would have been a more accurate nickname for our sixteenth president. Outside of works of fiction (insert shameless plug for The Platypus Party), honest politicians are basically unicorns. Isn’t lying just in the job description? We can only hope the winner is the one with the shortest nose in November.
All of that has prompted me to offer up a new way to define politicians. To me, politicians are people willing to do or say anything, at anyone’s expense, to make themselves look better. Similarly, they are also unwilling to do anything for anyone else unless they think it makes them look better.
Sadly, this affliction extends into just about every facet of life. Politicians are the people who do nice things not because they are nice but because they want to be thanked. And they get pissed off when they aren’t thanked “properly.” Who even knows what that means? They are the people who show up for church on Sundays dressed to the nines. They sit in the front row not to get closer to any sort of spirituality, but because they want everyone to notice them. Because they think that makes them good people. Even admired. Then they go home and beat their 5-year-old for laughing because of “what someone might think.”
And politics kills what could otherwise be great companies. We’ve all seen them. People we call “brown-nosers,” “suck-ups” and worse. They take credit that isn’t theirs and deflect blame to anyone but themselves. They’ll do or say anything if they think it will cast them in a better light. And they won’t lift a finger for anyone or anything unless something’s in it for them. They hitch their wagons to people they believe have the most power, publicly vowing to follow them anywhere. They follow their heroes right to the door, then slam it behind them and start talking about how much more they could’ve accomplished if that person hadn’t been in the way.
Another thing I believe is common to politicians in all arenas is that they are veneer. They go to great lengths to keep people from seeing beneath the surface because image is everything to them. They’ll actively discredit or distance themselves from people who dare to look any deeper. Because depth is the politician’s worst enemy.
Most of the time, I think politicians do what they do because they truly believe everyone is doing the same thing. It may be the only honest belief they have. They can’t fathom how anyone else wouldn’t want the same things they want or act the same way they do, so they have to “do it first.” They can’t see anything without filtering it through how it affects them.
So let me bring it back to my original question—is it just bad politics or are all politics bad? I think the answer lies in something a good friend of mine once told me. We were discussing something over a few beers—I don’t even remember the topic—but he said, “You know, Mikey (he’s one of only a few people I’ve ever let call me Mikey. I don’t know why, but it just sounds normal coming from him), I think fanaticism is just plain bad, no matter what people are fanatical about.”
Think about that for a second. Politicians are, at their core, fanatics. Fanatical about the spotlight. About power and influence. About themselves. So maybe it’s a square and rectangle thing. All politicians are narcissists, but all narcissists aren’t necessarily politicians. Some of them are just dicks.
Cheers!
