From 2007-2015 Simon Marcus was a British Conservative Party Candidate, “sometime advisor and up-and-comer.” He’s taken that experience and written a piece you should read titled “How Politics Destroys Your Soul.” He’s talking about Parliament, but it rings true in any political environment.
From Washington, DC, to your state legislature, town, and city councils. The formula is the same. You select people who appear principled; over time, some less than others, they all join the equivalent of the swamp. It almost seems inevitable. Inexorable. As if the maxim is true about the people drawn to politics.
What I referred to the other day as,
“…too often those who should be kept from it. They are flawed, human. Not special. Not deserving of elevation beyond the office, they may very well come to abuse. For a time, they may serve as defenders of liberty, but if left unchecked, many abandon the isolation of defending individualism for the kindred comfort of ruling-class despotism.”
What I generalized Marcus has outlined—the people, the pressure, the journey; from principled freshman to corrupt career politician. And no, it’s not a voyage with which we are unfamiliar. You can likely name a few off the top of your head—people you supported who turned to the dark side. But having an insider articulate it puts helps us better understand not just the process but the danger the government (big government, in particular) presents to individual rights and liberty.
MPs, ministers, civil servants, special advisers, think tanks, quangos, NGOs, industry groups, unions, MSM, charities, lobbyists, consultancies and more are all the ‘crooked timber’ of humanity.
They need to be accepted. To belong. They are greedy. Angry. Ambitious. Fearful. Vain. Vulnerable. Most of them are utterly enslaved by ego. They want what they don’t have. They don’t want what they do have. They are easily manipulated. …
These levers are part of our cultural machinery. Thousands of organisations orbit around political parties and institutions like different fan clubs for a football team. Youth groups, business advocacy groups, industry groups, single-issue pressure groups and interest groups such as Conservative Friends of China. In this universe you form new networks, incentives, views and habits. You learn how to climb the ladder. It is an entirely transactional world. It encourages both conformity and self-interest.
Corporations are not all that different. It’s all about leverage to get the desired response, and if you have a spouse and family, all the better—flanking opportunities. Honey traps. Whatever it takes to compromise you, and that compromise is rewarded.
The higher you go, the better it gets. You are wined and dined. Introduced to famous people. Private lunches with billionaire donors. Luxury overseas trips. They talk about your future, your ability and talent. You practise your speeches in front of the mirror. You get an appointment with the Prime Minister. The head of the Civil Service calls you up. You are living the dream. You already have quite an address book too.
Your new social ecosystem has huge emotional power over you. It gives you a new identity. You come to depend on it and self-regulate to stay part of it. That means we nudge our beliefs a tiny bit every day. It becomes a habit. It’s the banal way in which humans function.
Then you meet the serious guys who hide behind the scenes. ‘Do you have any skeletons in your closet? We need to know in case the lefties do a hatchet job on you.’
A few months later you get some instructions you don’t like. You protest. You are told to do it, or things could get nasty. You ask yourself, ‘Have I just been threatened?’ You aren’t sure. But you tell your first half truth anyway.
This is the Georgetown flu—an infection you can’t even cure by running them out of office. The very next day, they are either hired to consult, find themselves working as a lobbyist, or embedded somewhere else on the beast, influencing the new generation of idealized freshmen, thinking they will bring change. Very few fail to succumb to the “crooked timber” of humanity.
Being on the outside is lonely. You are told you’ll never have any influence from out there. Nothing you came to do will get done; come on inside.
They convince you, or you do yourself, that you can resist the lure, but how many have? There are not many, and it is why so many people are enthusiastic about Donald Trump. He doesn’t need or appear to want any of what they’ve got to offer, and their hatred of that only makes him more appealing to his base.
If Ron DeSantis wants the nomination, he must do a better job at two things. First, prove to them that he is an outsider, and second that he can stay outside no matter how bad it gets. Florida is the bush leagues. He has allies in his home state. The bureaucracy is his; his party controls the legislature. He does not need to convince them of much.
When you step inside the beltway, it’s a boss battle against the devil himself. Almost no one will be on your side unless you take their side because the devil does not like to lose.
HT | Meryl Nass Substack
