A Game of Presidents

[Cain]

"Nothing here is what it seems.  He is not the plucky hero.  The Alliance is not an evil empire.  This is not the Grand Arena."
- The Operative, Serenity

"Tell me, Alayne—which is more dangerous, the dagger brandished by an enemy, or the hidden one pressed to your back by someone you never even see?"
- Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, A Storm of Swords

Just because there's a Democrat in the White House is no reason to stop reading Lovecraft.
- Jeff Wells

The last eight years were certainly a blast, weren't they?  I believe its fair to say that blasts in particular were a common occurrence of that period.  But that aside, it was certainly a steep learning curve, especially for neophytes like me.  Growing into an adult the Bush era was akin to being put on the Advanced Course for Blatant Nepotism and Group Insanity.  And it was insane.  9/11 was terrifying, but the regularity with which the Bush Administration, aided and abetted by their vassals such as Blair and Howard, pulled out the quiet reassurances of previous years, was deliberately unsettling and designed to confuse.

But as terrible as their enemies made them out to be, the leadership of those years was only matched in its hideously naked ambition with its stupidity and frequent ability to break the fourth wall.  Sure, the idiots bought the act that Bush was a Godly man...but many of those idiots also believe in an invisible man in the sky, with the usual associated nonsense that entails.  They are not exactly hard to fool.  No, for those who paid attention, the only thing more worrying than the return of torture, the dismantling of civil liberties and the possibility of never-ending war was the obviousness and delight with which this was pursued, not for any higher goal but for its own sake.

No-one here, for example, really believed the plight of the poor Iraqis and Kurds really kept Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney up late at night, as it were.  Surrounding themselves with imperial fetishists, the sort of people who really believed in making big bucks from the White Man's Burden, it was clear that any relation any policy had to the national good was purely coincidental at best.  And the madness spread far and wide, getting deeper and more worrying.  People believed the lies, because to believe otherwise was to trust the judgement of one's eyes and higher faculties, and not emotion.  It was to admit a gaggle of madmen and pathetic fantasists had really seized control of the most powerful nation in the world, that they had been given carte blanche by a well timed terrorist attack and a population that, like most, vacillated between apathy and unreasonable fear. 

But, as always, we adapted and learned.  Indeed, it was not hard to, when the Dauphin's own courtiers were about as subtle as the Hulk about their intent.  They telegraphed their aims and intentions for the world to see, and, for those of us who were not too shocked by the audacity of such a display and went into denial, we learnt.  The rules of the game changed, and for a while seemed to have changed almost permanently.  Everything changed after 9/11 and all that, not least the shamelessness of our leaders.

But then, as disaster piled on disaster and the abstract fear of smudgy men with futuristic weapons of mass death were replaced by the very real fears of mercenaries, of secret prisons, of an American city devastated and left to die, of an increasingly phony economy, of a growing amount of patriotic young men coming back in body bags...the edifice started to crumble.  For a while, the only thing that kept it from falling apart entirely was, ironically, the complete and utter lack of real political level opposition.  Usually, voids are not beneficial to unstable structures, but in this case it kept the administration afloat.

And then, sidelined for nearly 13 months, the pathetic rump of a Presidency took the sideshow for the contest to become the Dauphin's replacement, AKA the sucker who gets to pick up the tab.

But the change is more than cosmetic, and less than revolutionary.  A new court is about to be installed.  Already its made a few foolish mistakes, made enemies unnecessarily in addition to the ones it could not avoid.  And that the altering of the political landscape, the rats of the Good Ship PNAC, scurrying back to the think tanks and policy centres, has left the field to the victors, brings a change in circumstance.  And that is something that needs to be considered carefully.

I don't wish to debate policy.  Even less so, do I want to debate the "morality" of the incoming administration and its President.  Such debates are specious and futile, in the long run.  I am more interested in surviving, then thriving, which means keeping an eye on the wind of change and knowing how the people in charge are constrained by what has already happened, as well as their own beliefs.  Because, regardless of if the new President is a good man or a bad one, it makes no difference if you suffer from his actions, or indeed benefit from them.  No doubt some of the Kulturkampfers really believe that denying kids adequate sex education will really help them.  Equally, I suspect the nannying politicians such as Hillary Clinton really believe that by banning violent games, crime will vanish and America will return to a 1950s style utopia.  To give two more benign examples.

But it goes beyond left or right, the shift.  The empire is receding.  Dreams of imperial authority, stamped into the national consciousness via rivers of blood, of a militaristic nation designed to churn out Sir Richard Temple's and Lord Kitchener's by the dozen, have faded.  Instead, as evidenced by the presence of certain advisers, twittering like minor Stuart nobles during the Restoration, is that the Clinton years are back.  The iron fist of the processes of the political system will once again be masked in a velvet glove.  Normality will return. 

Hillary Clinton herself has touted the benefits of "smart power".  Putting aside the question of whether any of our political leaders are actually smart enough to make use of such a concept, all this promises is the return of efficient power.  And that is not necessarily a good thing.  Furthermore, smart power is just a beefed up euphemism for Joseph Nye's soft power, which is another way of saying the use of ideological and cultural means to manipulate a population into supporting a position.  Naturally, this also means using the media, and religion, to buttress support as well.

And this is just the start of the changes set to come.  Obama, for example, seems keen to show himself as a Lincoln figure, uniting the divided nation.  Which may be nice, since Bush seemed intent on replicating the worst aspects of President's Buchanan and Nixon.  However, the upshot may be legitimizing the excesses of the Bush years, and those complicit in its crimes.  To be sure, the Democrats will be the ones in control, though without anyone to cave into, they may find themselves a little disorientated for a while.  But eventually, they will come around to the Administration line, whatever that may be.

It may take everyone else just as long to adjust to the change.  So used to the external controls, the thugs in the boardrooms and private armies and, indeed, in Congress and the White House itself, people may find relief in their absence and forget the more subtle, the more discreet methods of coercion.

The new rules of the game are uncertain.  But I, for one, do not intend to be caught out.  Learning the rules, gaming the system, that is necessary.  Because regardless of the disposition of the new court, I don't intend to be manipulated, for purposes I don't agree with or don't care for.  And I certainly don't intend to be a pawn, like the useless chumps of the "progressive" movement, to name but one example.

Politics is a game of power, played with money, reputation and lives.  Nothing will change that.  The aims and intents to which power are deployed, however, can.  But people mix up the levels.  Change in aims does not necessarily mean a change in means and a change in means does not necessarily mean the aim is now something else either.

You cannot let hope, or relief, blind you to the fact that these people will be situated in a position where they can wield incredible influence, one which can have unintended consequences.  Its not exactly every man for himself, but if you don't operate under that assumption you will get played, even if you consider yourself a player in the game.

The court is allegedly the height of civilization, but beneath that veneer it is a struggle for power and control.  That can never be forgotten.

[Payne]

Awesome.

Would it be okay if I printed off a few of those for leaving on trains/ churches/ Conservative party offices?

[Cain]

Naturally.  Feel free to clean up the grammer/spelling/whatever as well.

If you want to credit it to someone, try Verwirrung, since I'm going to post it there once I finish this chapter.

[Payne]

Messing around with it on Scribus just now.

Will let you see how it turns out, before I link it and what have you.

[Payne]

And after screwing around with it for an hour, I find out Scribus is borked.

Oh well, I'll see if I can do it another way.

[Triple Zero]

I really like how the piece sort of takes you on a ride, with a few very sharp turns.