Are we too into politics?
Too often, the hyper-political are convinced that clever game-playing will have far greater an effect than it ever will. But is that because we don't live in the real world?
I have become a little obsessed with the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. For those who don’t know the story, the potted version is that a persuasive young woman managed to convince a lot of people that she had invented a revolutionary new technology that would enable all sorts of medical tests to be run on just two drops of blood. This was - of course - complete bullshit, and Holmes is now on trial for multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The trial is ongoing so we cannot call her guilty, but the fact was that whether knowingly or naively, Holmes convinced a lot of people of something that wasn’t true, but that felt like a revolutionary shortcut.
Those who fell for the lie included several senior US political figures from across the political spectrum. Board members of Theranos included Henry Kissinger, George Shultz (who sided with Holmes over the misgivings of his own grandson - who blew the whistle on the company) and General James Mattis. Holmes was made Obama’s Presidental Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship and was lauded publicly by Bill Clinton.
Many seem surprised that so many figures from the world of politics were duped into falling for this - in hindsight - obvious nonsense. These are all highly intelligent people who have had a major impact on the world in which we live. Their decisions have had real-world consequences. How could they have been so gullible?
It is well known that intelligent people are more - not less - likely to join cults. And if we extend our definition of cults beyond religion to cultish thinking in business, culture or sport (as this very useful and interesting article does) we can see that the necessary conditions which make startups like Theranos attractive, singular and cultish more than apply to politics.
Let’s take the four things to avoid from the linked article:
Beware of Echo Chambers. Politics is terrible for echo chambers - and left wing politics in particular. We actively discourage each other from fraternising with “the enemy” (i.e. not just Tories, but anyone not actively signed up to our own micro-faction of a faction) and attempt social pressure to shame those who do. Jess Phillips is excoriated for her friendship with Jacob Rees Mogg (I don’t see the attraction, but equally, it doesn’t stop me seeing Jess as a fantastic campaigner on lots of things I do care about) while other Labour MPs are lauded for saying they would never be friends with a Tory despite the essential need to get votes across the aisle to pass any legislation they might want to get passed.
We curate our own newsfeeds and our online interactions as well as our real-life friendship groups. We spend increasing amounts of time - particularly the more politically active we get - only with those we agree with and increasingly discount those we don’t - even close family. Think for a moment about the common trope of how awful it is having to talk to your Brexiteer uncle or Tory grandparent at Christmas, all of which decouples us from the love we have for these people outside of their politics.
Political people live in echo chambers that are so obvious that often we cannot see them. Viewed from the outside, the way we live our lives, the way we think and engage and act and interact seem really quite odd to most people. But we are rarely able to take that step outside ourselves and our lives to think about this and what it actually means to how we do politics and how badly we do political persuasion.
Make sure your idea is open to criticism. As I discussed in last week’s newsletter, an openness to criticism is essential to strengthening ideas, campaigns and political parties. I don’t want to reiterate too much of that post. But if you are frustrated that few can see the true value of your genius (and hell - I get that feeling!), understand the importance of your issue, the relevance of your campaign or the necessity of your politics then maybe it is worth considering if it isn’t the other people at fault. Engage with the criticism. That doesn’t mean accepting it wholesale, but instead understanding where it is and isn’t valid. It means understanding different viewpoints and how they might impact on your ability to make an argument or have one accepted. It might even change how persuasive you are able to be.
Beware of single leadership. I think this is one of the most important and least observed aspects of politics. Investing all your energy not in a cause but in the personification of that cause, be they Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher or Boris Johnson will inevitably lead to failure and disappointment sooner or later.
Individuals have flaws. They generally have more flaws than an ideal because a collective that works properly should be able to critique out most of our flawed thinking (while constantly keeping a questioning mindset). When we set individuals up on a pedestal, we set them up to fail us.
But we also set limits on what our politics can and should achieve. For our ideas to be worth anything they should be able to outlive us. The implementation will grow and change with the world and the ideals should be able to adapt with them otherwise they are a commitment to the tools not the outcomes - tools don’t matter.
New Labour relied too heavily on the charisma and leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. So when their time inevitably came there wasn’t a next generation sufficiently ready, battle-scarred and hungry to take over. The ‘new’ became stale - it became old, it became outdated. This made the achievements of that government too easy to dismantle.
Corbynism too suffered from a lack of talent around the top team, with loyalty (not to the party but to the man) prized above all else. The second leadership contest was fought and won on this basis, but that too set up the politics of the left to be transitory. If - as was argued, Corbyn was essential for left wing politics, then left wing politics had nowhere to go when he left the stage.
Beware of confirmation bias. The article talks about how success once in business does not lead to a new industry standard. This is also true in politics, but boy do we wish it weren’t.
Politics is a hard, hard grind. It is a lot of work for often no reward. Even if you are elected (and remember that for everyone who is there are hundreds of exhausted activists who helped make that happen) you will often find yourself both frustrated at your inability to make change and with a divisive or invisible public profile.
Politics is also often described as a calling or a moral crusade. We believe in what we are doing deeply. This goes beyond an attachment to a product - it is about how we want to do nothing less than shape the world. So of course we are keen to find ways to make doing that in our way easier. We want shortcuts and magic formulas.
This is where snake oil salesmen like Dominic Cumming come in. They try to tell us that only they know the secret to winning elections and campaigns. Pay them a fortune, they say, and we will get you to the top. Of course, they also then turn around and say that you don’t belong at the top when they inevitably fall out with you. And Cummings may know how to win, but time and again it has been proved he has absolutely no idea what to do with the prize. Winning by fighting to destruction might work for a permanent professional campaigner - but it does those left to govern no good at all.
Political campaigning is deeply susceptible to fads. We want shortcuts. One minute it’s all about data segmentation and the scientific application of data mining to the electorate. the next it’s about community organising and intimate human connection. Is it Facebook ads? Clever posters? Rallies? Door knocking? What is the silver bullet that will guarantee an electoral win?
The truth is it will be all of these and none of these. It will be something you’ve never thought of and something that you’ve been doing since the first day you volunteered. It will be something you do your opponent doesn’t or it will be a mistake they made that you didn’t. They will be working as hard as you and want this as much as you. Never be under any illusion they don’t.
There are lots of exciting and important innovations to political campaigning. And thank goodness or people like me would have less to write about! But none of them is the X factor that will guarantee a win. The electorate is too damn smart, tricksy, dumb, annoying, slippery and wonderful for that. They’re going to have their say and you’ve got a job to do to persuade them in as many ways as possible.
The truth is that being politically active is uncomfortably close to being in a cult. We follow rituals, have regular congregations, preach the word to non-believers and shun the unfaithful. We root out the sacrilegious and ostracise those found to blaspheme or question. We invest our faith in a higher authority and work for their glory - not our own.
As Labour continues to argue about the fallout of the Corbyn years, it is worth those who weren’t Corbynistas and those who were to all take stock of their own shortcoming and cultish behaviours and seek to take the advice in italics above. Or as God would have it “First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”
What I’ve been up to
I seem to have been incredibly busy, but don’t have a lot to show for it publicly!
I did review a rather good play - A splinter of ice - a fictional, imagined version of a real meeting that took place between Graham Greene and Kim Philby.
Reading List
Stephen Bush’s piece on They Work For You - the frustrating and essential but highly flawed service that lets you know how MPs vote on a variety of issues is well worth a read. Once again it is about that last point. This is a tool. It could be better. That doesn’t make it unimportant.
The Sunday Times investigation into the killing of a Kenyan prostitute by a British soldier is extraordinary. A very important bit of reporting and currently a story without an ending.