So you think when you see a politician’s face it is everything you can possibly see. Yes, you are right, there are so-called lobbyists, advisors, and shadow eminences.
But the truth is there is a face (the very politician), mover-and-shaker (the brain), crook (stealing public funds or monetize the influence he exerts over the politician). In the nowadays Czech Republic “the brain” has had disappeared, only the face and the crook remained with the crook stealing the funds on the maximum.
Some Americans proudly call this a political machine (for example, the Chicago political machine) and regard it as a legitimate thing.
The crook or brain are connected to even more powerful interest groups (the lobbyists or in the USA and the Czech Republic, the super-rich families; they formed in the 19th century in the USA, and they formed in the 1990s in the Czech Republic; yes, it was the Wild West, when you gain coal mines over the night). We must admit that “economy = politics”. When you are economically strong you are strong politically which applies to every single country on this planet. In order to write your own laws for the profit of your conglomerate, you must use and squeeze the politicians. Or you have to be strong to make other interest groups do something for you. Once you are powerful and rich you want to be even more rich and powerful.
It is essential to have more than one source of information for the politician because the sources are distorted for their own profit. And you must know what is happening in the political background (when you know what happens in the economy (the big players, The Big Five) you know what happens in politics). So besides your usual sources, there are private spying agencies or police, NSA, CIA.
You must acknowledge the interest groups have influence over everything in the country. Privatized foreign policy, privatized legislative power, privatized judiciary power, privatized executive power, privatized prime minister, privatized president, privatized royal.
Speaking of American reality, they have contacts with the police, judges, attorneys, and the FBI.
The powerful super-rich interest group are in some (hostile or not) constellations, therefore you can never know what step is motivated by what in politics when you don’t know the political background.
If smart, the politician must play around the interest groups while gaining so much of the political capital he can get.
If interest group A agrees with interest group B, but both of them don’t agree with interest group C (and you represent the group C). There is also interest group D which would agree with group B if group B wouldn’t agree with A (and group D would be neutral). So you utilize your power and turn your group C to group B not agree with group A, therefore D would agree with B and the outcome for your C group is neutral. But now the interest group A will become hostile to you.
People often presume politicians do only things for their own profit, however, they don’t admit the politicians often use their hard-earned political capital for good cause.
If you had no understanding of politics at all you would assume there is some political issue and the politician just should solve it. But he must prefer stealing the funds (he is associated with the crook), his own party is in turmoil and he is siding with one of the three fractions, plus there are also the very interest group and the media which form whether he is going to solve the problem or not. Now you see how tied the politician is.
Imagine the interest group you are representing tell you to say a lie. Then you must lie or alienate the group. The alienation manifests itself in vilification in media by the group (because they own the media or exert control over them), changing political background to your disadvantage (change the constellation of other interest groups), or use their proxies in your party that would take steps to your disadvantage.
Imagine the political competition throwing mud at you and rightly so. You must then lie or slightly destroy your political career. You must lie in order not to alienate your party fraction, your whole party, not to alienate the public, as a fore-step to another step, lie in a campaign, lie in public debate and so on.
A former Czech prime minister – when confronted with a corruption case in his own party – has said it was only an exemption in the party while the brighter had known it was a rule, not an exemption.
Lying in politics is useful move how to save your bottom. There could be politics without lies but that would required smart, educated population (no cognitive biases, formal fallacies, strong critical thinking).
The politicians are tied to interest groups more or less tightly. The Clintons were (or are) very close to the US establishment yet Hillary Clinton still managed to lose elections.
I must admit I have ambivalent relationship with Hillary Clinton. In order to survive the Clintons destroyed careers of hundreds of politicians, some of them far brighter than they are. Yet Hillary Clinton’s lifetime dream was to become the president of the USA which she failed to become. I feel pity for her and I know very well the politics can be and is very cruel, indeed.
I would also like to mention the politicians have done background deal and still arguing how are they against each other on the TV.
When you have learned how rigid the whole system is you must realize that it is very difficult to achieve something in politics. And politicians differ in their skills and they say the postwar political era of clever politicians is over. The bright people went to business, banking and so on. So what about the messy US politics? Perhaps Cardinal Richelieu would fix things up.
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