Why Go Into Politics?

It’s exciting , sure. And maybe you can do some good. But don’t trust your boss—or your motives.

At 42, I’ve reached the age at which friends in their 20s begin to ask for advice. Lately several young or youngish people have asked some version of this question: How do I get into politics? The question is pretty easy to answer. Pick a few politicians you find interesting or ideologically agreeable and send them your résumé. That’s what I did in 2007. I got a job in the office of Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina as a “communications advisor” or speechwriter.

The question I wish my young friends would ask me — but of course they don’t — is not how they can get into politics but whether they should. Politics can be rewarding, for sure. You don’t need to describe it with the lofty term “public service” to recognize that diligence in the employment of an elected official can improve government’s effectiveness and make things a little easier for those who pay for it. There is satisfaction in that.

The danger is that over time you stop working for the people who pay for government and begin advancing your boss’s political career. It’s almost impossible not to. You become so involved with your work — promoting the boss’s agenda, making him look good in whatever ways you can, trying to refute his critics — that after a few years you find you’ve begun to equate whatever raises his political trajectory with what’s good for the state or nation. You’re flattered by his success because it’s your success, too, and before long you’re just another political hack.

I know several political hacks, and none of them thinks of himself as a hack or ever wanted to become one. These are the staffers who defend their bosses’ least attractive characteristics and most devastating blunders even in private. One exchange comes vividly to mind. After the lieutenant governor had made a grossly inept comment at a public event — he had compared poor people to animals — I made what I thought was a good-natured comment to one of his staffers. “At least he didn’t disappear for five days and then confess to an affair,” I said, whereupon the staffer became almost irate and insisted his boss’s comments had been “taken out of context.” I thought, but did not say, that this man needed to get out of politics while there was still time.

Perhaps the chief attraction to politics is the constant thrill. The knowledge that what you do may affect the lives of millions of people gives you an exhilarating sense of importance that you will not find in many other jobs. For a lot of people, the constant hubbub of politics — the big votes, the rumors of alliances and betrayals, the headlined announcements and speeches — becomes a kind of narcotic.

For others, though, the never-ending succession of ribbon-cutting ceremonies and news conferences and press releases and interviews, each requiring feigned sobriety and inflated language, begins to feel vaguely fraudulent. That insincerity is reflected in the political sphere’s language itself. Once, when I was drafting an op-ed or a press release, I asked a colleague if a bill recently passed by the legislature could accurately be described as “historic.” “No,” he said, “all it did was reshuffle an agency.” I was stumped for an adjective, so I asked, half jokingly, whether I could use the word anyway.

Without a trace of a smile, or even looking up, he replied: “Of course.”

The real danger in politics, though, is the trust you’re tempted to place in the person you work for. The successful modern politician has achieved high office by convincing large numbers of people that he is wise and capable and principled and trustworthy. But trustworthy people don’t try hard to convince you of their trustworthiness. A good man would have to be asked to hold high office; the politician persuades people to put him in it. He does this by flattering them for having the good sense to know a true statesman when they see one.

Politicians are often decent people, and anyhow it takes a special sort of person to risk humiliation (electoral defeat) for the chance to make laudable changes to government policy. Some politicians — I count former Governor Sanford among them — are capable of extraordinary foresight and great courage. You’re right to esteem them when they act courageously for worthy ends. But you’re a fool to trust them. Trust them and they’ll break your heart.

Should my young friends go into politics? The world of politics needs honest and industrious people at all times, so perhaps they should. But only if they understand that flattery is the currency of politics, and they can be bought more easily than they think.