The Politics of Duplicity

 

The Politics of Duplicity

Peter Schultz

 

                  The political realm is not a realm governed often by intelligence. I used to ask students to use one word that would describe what quality presidents should have. Universally, their response was “strong.” To which I responded: “Why not smart? Or compassionate? Or just?” Their response: “Oh, I meant smart too.” “Ah,” I would say. “But you didn’t say ‘smart.’ You said ‘strong.’  And you meant it.”

 

                  So, what governs behavior in the political realm? Is it strength? And, if it is strength, is strength sufficient? Or does strength have to be supplemented? At least rhetorically, supplements seem necessary, which points to the duplicitous character of political behavior. Because being strong is insufficient, politicians need to make themselves appear to be intelligent, just, and compassionate. Hence, their duplicity because, like my students, they too privilege strength as most important.  

 

                  But, in fact, strength or power are insufficient in that they almost always come up short. Or, put differently, strength or power works but only for a limited time, leading to the need for supplements or the appearance of supplements. The powerful cannot successfully govern simply by way of their power. Which is another reason duplicity is so characteristically political. The powerful, to preserve their legitimacy, are forced to hide or disguise the limits of their power. Hence, the cover-ups that pervade the political realm as politicians seek to hide the limited usefulness of power as revealed by their compromises and failures.

 

                  A danger arises, however, when duplicity is mistaken for power, rather than a being understood as a cover for relative powerlessness. It is because duplicity reflects and covers the limits of power, that it will, invariably, fail. A politics of duplicity is, essentially, a politics of failure. Just ask Richard Nixon. Or, for that matter, ask LBJ, Reagan, GHW Bush, Bill Clinton, G. Bush, Obama, Trump, and Joe Biden. All failed to one degree or another.

 

                  Impressively, Ben Franklin, at the constitutional convention in 1787, predicted – in his own way – that presidents were very likely to fail given the character of the presidency and the men it would attract. But then Franklin did not share Alexander Hamilton’s embrace of “the love of fame” as “the ruling passion of the noblest minds.” Franklin’s preferred presidents would be pedestrian, peaceful, definitely less “noble” than Hamilton’s lovers of fame, those who these days duplicitously deem themselves “visionaries.” So, perhaps Franklin had a point as Hamilton’s “nobility” has proved to be a disguise for what is just another group of “stentorian baboons.”