The Obama Watch
The Democrats Find Machiavelli
That’s what happens when you think you have a Prince for a president.
Perhaps it had to happen. The Democrats, with an unpopular leader, down in the polls, and with little hope of an improvement in the economy, have found Machiavelli, the patron saint of seizing and holding on to power at all costs. Chris Matthews, the protagonist of Hardball, has written a book on Jack Kennedy as a leader in the Machiavellian tradition, preferring to be feared rather than loved. Though Bobby was the one who gained a well-merited reputation for ruthlessness, Jack, writes Matthews, “could be pitiless.”
It is filled with examples. Jack “had no choice but to destroy” William Burke, the Massachusetts Democratic State Chairman, using the Boston cops to keep Burke out of the room while the state committeemen were voting him out as chairman. Similar tactics were used on the Governors of Ohio, Maryland, California, and Pennsylvania. And when Kennedy became president and Roger Blough, the president of U.S. Steel, defied him by raising steel prices, Blough and his staff were subjected to subpoenas, searches by FBI agents, and threats that their hotel bills and nightclub expenses would be made public.
Dana Milbank, the Washington Post columnist, ends his laudatory column on these tactics by drawing the conclusion: “Sometimes, that’s how it must be. Can Obama understand that?”
So much for Republican ruthlessness.
But the trouble for Democrats is that Machiavelli is not good news for Obama. Not that Obama hasn’t tried more than a little ruthlessness of his own. While he was in the Senate, for example, Obama was one of the leading supporters of campaign finance reform. When he launched his candidacy and saw he could get the money, he threw finance reform overboard like an empty beer bottle and raised more money than any presidential candidate in history. When he was campaigning, he said that the Afghanistan war was the one that Bush ought to have fought. When the opinion polls turned against it, he announced that 30,000 troops would be returning to the U.S. — and, surprise, surprise, most of them would come back a month before the election. Similarly, he maneuvered the Iraqi government into saying that they didn’t need American troops any more — largely by telling that government that he wasn’t prepared to leave more than 3-5,000 — so no doubt he will be going round the country next year telling us all that he ended the Iraq war. He must be hoping that this ruthlessness may still be enough to pull him through.
Another problem for Democrats is that Machiavelli believed that public opinion was seldom wrong, and the leader needed to keep on good terms with the people. “Not without good reason is the voice of the people likened to that of God,” he wrote, “for public opinion is remarkably accurate in its prognostications, so much so that it seems as if the populace by some hidden power discerned the evil and the good that was to befall it.” This is a truth on which American democracy rests. Recent writers like James Surowiecki have noted the remarkable ability of groups of people to predict more accurately than the experts how to come to wise decisions, foster innovation, solve problems, predict the future, and even count the number of marbles in a glass bowl. It is a truth with which a lot of Democrats have struggled, hence the flirtations of Matthews and Milbank with ruthlessness, and the inclination of Democrats like Peter Orszag and Bev Perdue to entrust decisions to commissions rather than the American people.
Another reason why Machiavelli is not good news for Democrats is that he deplores extravagant expenditure. In his chapter on Liberality and Meanness in his best-known book, The Prince, he advises that it may be good to be reputed liberal but unfortunately this carries with it the problem that liberalism is an expensive proposition “so that a prince thus inclined will consume in such acts all his property, and will be compelled in the end, if he wish to maintain the name of liberal, to unduly weigh down his people, and tax them, and do everything he can to get money. This will soon make him odious to his subjects…” Much better, Machiavelli says, for the prince to be thrifty, to cut down on expenditures — in effect, to tackle the deficit — and use the money he saves for important matters that will increase his reputation.
Machiavelli couples this advice with the observation that the two greatest threats to the leader are to be hated or despised. The American people — some blogs to the contrary notwithstanding — are not great haters. But they are very ready to disdain politicians. McCain, for example, suffered when he called for a conference in Washington on the economic crisis in the midst of the 2008 campaign, and then had nothing to say.
And here is where Machiavelli’s warning to Obama comes in. One of the biggest dangers Obama faces is this kind of ridicule: promising to take the “tough decisions” and then leaving them to someone else; promising to focus like a laser on jobs, jobs, jobs, and failing to provide them; creating the biggest new entitlement program since the 1960’s, and then telling us that it would actually save money; and creating the largest deficit in US history, and then, even at the eleventh hour, failing to deal with it.
Machiavelli valued two qualities in a leader, courage and intelligence. The leader shows courage by actually taking the tough decisions. As George Orwell once put it, “the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time.” But Obama has seldom shown much interest in putting his head above the parapet. In his eagerness to strengthen his appeal, Obama has forgotten those sacrifices he was demanding of those who made $250,000 a year. He now demands sacrifices only of the Warren Buffetts of the world, the fleece-lined sacrificial lambs, the millionaires and billionaires, and, of course, the makers of corporate jets.
Still, Obama’s defenders would say, surely he has the intelligence? And here we have to introduce another liberal admirer of Machiavelli, Jonathan Powell, Chief of Staff to Tony Blair throughout his ten years in office as Britain’s Labor Prime Minister. The poisonous politics of the British Labour Party may have suggested to Powell that he consult Machiavelli, but that’s another story. In any event, Powell, in his The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World, notes that by intelligence Machiavelli did not mean mere intellect. He meant “judgment or instinct — what we would now call emotional intelligence. This is the mysterious ingredient that allows great leaders to have a sense of where Fortune will lead and how best to take advantage of it. Unlike wisdom, for example, which can be acquired with experience….[a] leader has to be born with them.” The pre-eminent examples of such judgment in our time were Reagan’s decisions — in conflict with nearly all the experts of his time — that the spiraling inflation of the 1970’s could to be broken, and that the decline of the Soviet Union could be hastened.
By this criterion Obama doesn’t do too well, either. To launch Obamacare at the very moment that the United States was experiencing a dangerous recession was not the supreme example of good judgment. Nor was it good judgment to launch cap-and-trade at the very moment that two huge countries like China and India, with their enormous populations, were driving relentlessly towards unprecedented opportunities for their long-suffering peoples. And time will tell — perhaps all too soon — whether Obama has made a safe bet on Iraq and Afghanistan. The trouble with such “Machiavellian” judgments, in the sense we usually use the term of being selfish, cunning or without moral justification,is that they end up being too clever by half.
Modern leadership, says Powell, bringing Machiavelli up to date, requires competence (which he defines as crisis management), the ability to communicate, charisma, perspective, and charm. Surely again, Obama’s defenders would argue, he has all of the above. Well, does he? By this stage in Reagan’s presidency, faced with a similar recession, his economic policies were already producing results, and inflation and unemployment were both sharply reduced. But Obama also has serious problems with what are regarded as his great strengths, his charisma and his ability to communicate. Charisma comes in part with the job: heads turn when a president, even an uncharismatic president, comes into the room. But charisma mostly depends on continued success. An essential component, says Powell, is optimism. “Generally speaking in politics it is the optimistic candidate who wins and the pessimistic one who loses.” So Clinton beats George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush beats Gore, Obama beats McCain, and so on.
But we’ve seen a lot more of Obama since he was elected. In truth, he is not a cheery soul. He is lugubrious. He is what the English would call a dismal Johnny. His charisma in 2008 consisted in who he was, and what his candidacy said about the progress the U.S. had made in bringing about racial equality. When the American people looked at him they saw a glowing reflection of themselves in the mirror. Now they see him as he is, and he hasn’t profited from the change. He sounds strident rather than hopeful, threatening rather than encouraging, divisive rather than a uniter. He is not good at projecting optimism, but such as it is his optimism is increasingly implausible. He goes to small producers of car batteries in the Midwest and sees millions of jobs arising from a largely untried technology; and he used to do the same at solar panel factories and small lengths of potentially high speed rail track, but after Solyndra and the train crash in China he has suddenly fallen silent about these innovations.
There is another error into which Obama is liable to fall. “It is of so great importance,” wrote Machiavelli, “that I must not pass it over.” It is flattery. Flatterers “abound in courts” and leaders are apt to fall into error “unless they are very prudent or very fortunate in their choice of friends.” Powell says categorically that “[w]hat brings down all leaders in the end is hubris. There is no escaping it, whether in a dictatorship or a democracy. Once leaders are sucked into the embrace of the government machine, they are invariably cut off from the real world.” Powell observed this hubris in almost every leader. When Blair first met Vladimir Putin he was modest and unassuming. Each subsequent time he visited Putin he had more grooms for his horses and lived in greater luxury.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (34) | Leave a comment
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Michael Tomlinson| 12.1.11 @ 6:24AM
Please, let's not insult Machiavelli by linking him to Obama or the elitist oligarchs of the "Democrat" party. Machiavelli at least had an appreciation for democracy.
c. j. acworth| 12.1.11 @ 7:13AM
It's been a long time since I read any Machiavelli, so perhaps someone out there with more recent scholarship than mine could tell me if he said anything about luck. It certainly looks to me as if Obama is "lucking out" regarding his opponents next November. It's a cryin' shame that the Republicans have such a flawed line-up. Not one of them seems to be getting any real traction. And this may well be the most important election since Carter v. Reagan.
Wayne| 12.1.11 @ 7:43AM
Yet all are probably better than Mc Cain.
oldfart| 12.1.11 @ 7:44AM
To change a phrase - "luck happens" - the first word you use depends on which side of the coin you have selected. With the present pretender in chief it seems he has made no selection - he gives the appearance of just being along for the ride. I agree that with the possible excepting of Mr. Gingrich, the existing Republican lineup is certainly a yawner – however, that does not mean, by default, that Obama will win re-election. That being said – unless BO can be ‘persuaded’ to put his unjustified ego in his back pocket and step aside the Demoncraps may well go the way of the Whigs.
Also, way too much attention is being given on to the Presidential race. The real shift of power is the large number of incumbents in the Congress who are deciding to hit the lifeboats and get out of Dodge. Is this a case of the rats leaving the sinking ship of state?
With Europe smoking the cheap stuff, problems in this hemisphere with no money, no way to cut enough, no way to raise taxes enough, there is no way to avoid a major financial re-alignment in the next few years.
oldfart| 12.1.11 @ 7:48AM
Oh - on the last sentence - thank you Barney for your help in painting this country into a corner.
c. j. acworth| 12.1.11 @ 8:28AM
Oldfart, good point about the composition of congress being at least as important as the Oval Office, but in our system, the President has a lot of power, as well as the Bully Pulpit. Plus (and a very big plus it is) he gets to nominate to the Supreme Court. True, his nominee can be rejected, but they usually aren't.
oldfart| 12.1.11 @ 9:18AM
With Maxine Waters slated to replace Barney - I am sure things will only get worse.
Very true that POTUS is in a position to be more powerful than the Congress but what we have now is a POTUS that refuses to lead and a Congress that is clueless when they actually have to make a decision so therefore we have a total power vacuum from two branches of Govt. It thrashes around like a headless dragon.
old white guy| 12.1.11 @ 10:48AM
i think it is more like a headless chicken.
oldfart| 12.1.11 @ 11:01AM
LOL
TrueBlue| 12.2.11 @ 2:43PM
Chickens generally don't cause this much damage.
WickedDickie--Virginia| 12.1.11 @ 8:11AM
Oddly, that quaint and curious document of forgotten lore (?) AKA, the Declaration of Independence comes to mind with regard to our "Prince". "He has refused his assent to laws....He has erected a Multitude of new Offices....A Prince whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People".......We must rid ourselves of this foul creature next November.
oldfart| 12.1.11 @ 11:06AM
And from that quaint and curious document of forgotten lore we learn that the Raven sits on the pallid bust of Pallas and proclaims the future of these United States as NEVERMORE.
Risk| 12.1.11 @ 8:36AM
Someone above asked about luck and Obama.
Well, Obama's first piece of luck is that the Opposition is so stupid as to have not puffed up a Democrat party member to primary Obama.
Why not? Russ Feingold? Evan Bayh of Indiana? What's Dick Gephardt doing these days? Doesn't Texas or California have some prominent Demoncrat who is so full of himself that one could stroke his ego and get him to run.
As has been posted here before: The first serious blows to Jimmy Carter after 3 years in the White House were landed by his Democratic Party challenger Ted Kennedy in the Democratic Party primary process. That helped soften Carter up for the coup de grace administered by the Reagan camp in fall 1980.
That there is no Democratic Party challenger right now to Obama speaks to the ineptitude of the GOP. There's luck, being unlucky, and just being plain dumb.
Wayne| 12.1.11 @ 6:20PM
No Democrat will challenge the first black president. Its that simple.
Tenn Slim| 12.1.11 @ 8:54AM
Excellent article. Mach... is the prime source for politicians, too bad most dont take his old advice seriously.
2012 Elections require that the Obama vs GOP? watchers re read old Mach...
Semper Fi
Mark MacInnis| 12.1.11 @ 8:57AM
I remember with delight the time when, after having heard the anecdotally about Machiavelli's writings, I actually took the book in hand and read his sage words...and found wisdom without rancor in concepts of gaining and maintaining power. The key is to be benovolent. Obama aspires to power without benevolence because in truth his narcissism prevents him from truly caring about his constituents (Barrack would likely use the term "subjects")....
The most successful presidents, by definition those who retained their popularity long enough to be re-elected, were those who loved the country...either its ideals or its people or both. Obama appears to love neither. He's been the "accidental president" in his first term. Despite the cries of doom from Beck and others, Obama has no chance in 2012. Some mistakes just don't bear repeating...... as Mr. Daltry so eloquently sang it, "We won't. Get. Fooled. A-GAIN!"
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.1.11 @ 9:31AM
The Democrats FIND Machiavelli? When did they ever lose him? They've been Machiavelli for 50 YEARS. You're thinking "Lost" when, in truth, he was just put on the shelf, for a while, as they've been BUSY, banging the Drums for MARX and ENGELLS and LENIN, STALIN, and MAO.
Have no fear. When someone IS Machiavelli, it's impossible to lose him.
"ARBEIT MACHT FREI"
Boar Hunter| 12.1.11 @ 11:31AM
I love reading you guys. I learn something everyday. From you; "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" thank you for that one to haunt my dreams!
If not for the appalling reference to "work" it could well be the Democrats 2016 election motto. Hope and Change "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" such a catchy phrase, maybe I'll suggest it to the Obama campaign website.
So others don't have to look it up "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" or "Work Brings Freedom" was the sign over the gates of Auschwitz.
Boar Hunter| 12.1.11 @ 12:52PM
I guess I find it haunting because I see how easily the same vapid dupes that voted for Obama can be led to support an evil cause without examining its merits or consequences simply by using a vacant phrase like "Hope and Change."
By his own admission, as a young man, Obama used cocaine and marijuana which used to render a man unelectable. He identified his chosen friends as Marxists and Communists, once again, unelectable. For twenty years he went to a racist church, apparently the support of a racist ideology is also acceptable in an American president.
Obama's know associates include William Ayres and Tony Rezkco (criminals and terrorists). He has appointed Czars and advisors who are avid communists. His only qualification for the job was that his father was a (muslim) black man from another country and some white man told him to utter the magic phrase "Hope and Change."
As a grown man of 52 years old I cried when we elected him. I have continued to privately weep and pray for our country.
The ultimate extension of affirmative action, Obama and his outlaw regime have spent all "our" money on things "we" don't want or need. Is "Dictator" not appropriate when applied to Obama?
What does he do that is any different? He has used our money to prop up a failed banking system and spent billions on the solar businesses owned by his supporters and the money simply vanished. They sent guns to narco-terrorists and sealed the records when a boarder patrol agent died.
He has taken over or destroyed the profitability of every industry in the country who has not gotten in bed with his regime. He rails against big business and those who don't pay their taxes, but GE is exempt?
Businesses are told what they can sell us to eat and drink. What lights to use. What we can do with our own property how to raise our children. They are mandating when and how much health care we can receive.
They brake the law and violate the constitution at every turn and use lawyers to dissemble their outrageous acts as irrelevant.
They are bent on turning all of us into indentured servants and people still support him.
I am terrified of our current presidential contenders. I ask you, when will someone stand up on our behalf?
When will a leader emerge and bring this lawless regime to an end?
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.1.11 @ 4:17PM
Where ya been?
Pop Quiz: Who came to Power, amid an Economic Upheaval, dazzling his audiences with his Words, and his Speeches. Who could hold them in the palm of his hands, as he campaigned on HOPE and CHANGE, while pitting the Poor against the Rich. The People, against the BANKS, and the (Jewish) BANKERS?
Need more Clues?
He loved the BIG LIE. He would repeat these lies, over and over, again, and his believers in the Press, protected him, every step of the way. He would fill the streets, with his supporters, who would Chant Their Slogans, and Make Their Demands, before resulting to Violence, to make their points. Smashing windows, and Blaming the JEWS.
This Leader kept himself Isolated from others. Had no Real Friends. Nobody even remembers if he ever had a girlfriend. And he surrounded himself with fellow IDEOLOGUES, who were Down for the Struggle, and Loyal to HIM, and His Cause. To them, he was the Alpha and the Omega. And he went on to DESTROY HIS COUNTRY.
Who is it?
Is it: a) Adolph Hitler
Is it: b) Mussolini
Is it: c) Vladamir Lenin
Is it: d) Fidel Castro
Is it: e) Robert Mugabe
Is it: b) Barack Hussein Obama
Or, is it ALL OF THE ABOVE?
Okay. Pencils down.
VonMisesJr| 12.1.11 @ 9:54AM
While Monarchy has lost its appeal and its power, today I think we misunderstand Kings and Princes of old. Some such as George III in our Founding history, and Charles I of England were contemptuous. But many Kings including Louis XVI had the interests of the subjects in mind. The economic situation and decades of privilege led to the French Revolution, not the meanness of the King.
By contrast, Obama and the socialist wish to impose their rule on the people by force with the intent of being despots. So since Obama and his ilk have no love for the country or the people, comparisons to Machiavelli seem inappropriate.
Petronius| 12.1.11 @ 10:24AM
I won't waste time peeling this orange. After three years this Captain of the ship of state Poltroonic has run it aground. The only pronouncement yet to be heard from the bridge would be his retort that we are unworthy of him. The last time such was told by a certain little Corporal who came a cropper by leading his country to abject ruin while taking a continent and a half with him.
Enough.
Citizen Jerry| 12.1.11 @ 10:57AM
What do you mean the Democrats believe they have a prince as president? As I recall it in 2008, they tried to tell the unwashed masses he was God Almighty. Whenever he spoke, the microphones were set on cathedral mode so the reverb sounded like the voice out of the burning bush.
Now they're trying to tell us to pay no attention to that little man behind the curtain. Sorry, but the phony has been exposed.
oldfart| 12.1.11 @ 11:41AM
"they" mispoke - he was (is) the Prince of Darkness trying to make us believe he was (is) the Almight.
Oldefarte| 12.1.11 @ 12:25PM
Democrats have always believed in presidential candidates with the ability to WOW the public [or to more appropriately BS them instead]. To them, it's all about political propaganda/brainwashing; and their selected candidates reflect same. They shun [and care nothing for their candidates ability to administer, to manage, to solve], because it's all about CONTROL OF THE POPULATION to them. If they gain thus, then they obtain/maintain POWER. The country and its survival be damned [and can GTH for all they care] as long as they have same. The insanity of this fact is that the American people/public allow themselves to be lemmingly hearded over the cliff by these manipulative Democrats into voting for their selected EMPTY SUITS, and the taxpayers that pay for the expense of government pay the price of such voting ''''''STUPIDLY'''''!!!!!
Juan Jose Morales-Castillo | 12.1.11 @ 12:55PM
One thing that I pray may result from the ouster of the Political Hack from Chicago is that it may end the lamentable Dem Party tradition of nominating nonentities whose only qualification for the Presidency is that they bear a purely imaginary resemblance to JFK.
William L. Gensert| 12.1.11 @ 1:10PM
He is not a prince; he is a King, and perhaps the greatest man to have ever lived. If you don't believe that, just ask him, he'll tell you.
Oldefarte| 12.1.11 @ 3:01PM
As long as his teleprompter is working of course!!!!!!!!
Rick| 12.1.11 @ 5:46PM
Obamas' polices do to work its just headwins. Your a bigget and a rasist!
Pat| 12.1.11 @ 7:01PM
It’s a slow news days when columnists have to drag “The Prince” into their musings. Why not Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and various witty comparisons to Satan? But putting the Lucifer bashing on hold for a moment, Obama’s story is more akin to “Election Lost” than “Paradise Lost”.
There are those among the Democrats who would dearly love to dump Obama, why not run someone who can win they whisper. For the present, they attend Democratic Party Team Building meetings wearing brown paper bags over their heads, better to stay anonymous until the panic eventually sets in – but today is not that day.
These paper bag sporting Dems know it’s about the money, it’s always about the money and Obama losing the election is about forfeiting future government money. But, you may object, Obama has been the greatest underwriter of taxpayer funded handouts, jobs for relatives, lavish perks for government employees, financial paybacks to labor unions, or what have you in Democratic Party history. And, no, LBJ was just peddling girl scout cookies compared to Obama, FDR was just another guy in a Santa suit ringing his bell and raising small change compared to Obama. Obama is the undisputed heavyweight champ, the most generous “giver-awayer” of other people’s money in the history of civilization – so where’s the loyalty? But “the playah” has to be in “da game” to win.
Conservatives may hate his arrogance or his unabashed partisanship but remember that Democrats hate being out of power. Because that’s when all that lovely money dries up, you have to get a real job, cancel the lease on the Mercedes and tell the kids Spring Break festivities in Cabo are on hold. So, what was it Machiavelli advised the Democrats? Oh yeah: “Keeping the Money beats Hope and Change any day of the week and twice on Sundays” – or something like that.
marshcope| 12.1.11 @ 7:43PM
Machiavelli lost his power in Florence when the Medicis played Hard Ball, and had him given a session on the rack, and banished him from the city to his little farm in the sticks, where he healed and wrote The Prince. Is there a legal way to get Chris Matthews onto a rack for some enlightenment, next to Joe and Mika in the Iron Maiden?
e track from saq| 12.1.11 @ 8:06PM
We were once such a good and noble country.
But the devil had designs on us.
Will we ever again be free.
Of this pestilence and fuss
Time to get smart
Let's endgame think
Begin a new start
From beastly evil delink
POST American| 12.2.11 @ 10:46PM
"Understand, even at the local level,
PSYCHOPATHS ALWAYS gravitate
toward POWER. ---ALWAYS. They
are superb actors, and LIARS; they
worship power and those above; they
are bottomless oppurtunists who know
how to sniff the wind; they can read you
better than you can yourselves; they
have nothing but contempt for those below;
and they have NO CONSCIENCE whatsoever.
None. ABSOLUTELY NONE. . .'
Just a word of warning as we take in
our range of 'can--did---dates'
---------------KNEW IT 'Getting RICH'
---------------------ME-shell BALK--men
--------------------------TTT-Rick Pair-he
------------------------------SUB-Mitt ROME-knee
----------------------------------HER-MAN CAIN
CONSIDER for yourselves, DEEPLY---------