Machiavellian Times

Machiavellian Times

By: Erreh Svaia

“It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver. “

Niccolo Machiavelli

David Brooks wrote recently on the New York Times that: "These days if you want to elect a leader, you have generally two choices, a sensible, establishment figure who is totally out of touch, or a populist outsider, who is incompetent, crazy or both." Certainly I agree with Mr. Brooks, and is not something to be proud of, considering that our faith in democracy has decreased considerably in the last years, typical politicians have done nothing to reach common people, and to give them certain degree of stability in the middle of a world economic crisis that we can't still be sure if it has been already solved or if it would be resolved one day.

When there is such uncertainty, some opportunist figures will always appear, trying to make us think that reality is far worse than we thought, catching us off guard, making us feel that only they, have the magic answers to our anxiety, messianic figures who offer a paradise without may logic explanations, and who serve only as catalysts of our anger and fears.

But in front of the populist menace taking all over the world, we have yet another problem, what have the traditional politicians done about it? What have them changed to meet the challenge of those who accuse them of not being in touch with reality, of not being sensitive enough, of working for the elites? Not pretty much really, they look clueless about how to answer, about uncertainty, they look too stiff and obese in order to react quickly and make compromises on an open dialogue, and they are even clumsy or not very sure when facing populist figures, I must clarify here, that is certainly easy to make mistakes when taking tough decisions, and is easy not to make mistakes when one does nothing except criticizing, that´s on populist’s advantage, don’t block them, let them speak, let them bite their own tongue, let them have a chance to govern in small scale, don’t hand them all the power and let see if they are too different from traditional politicians.

Recently, another big lesson in politics was put in full display in front of us, the first lesson was Grexit, and we all learned how things ended up there, with Tsipras the rising radical left wing prime minister who promised to negotiate hard with the Euro troika, but Tsipras was not a very smart negotiator and lost Yanis Varoufakis, one of his main collaborators in the process, even had to align with more radical and almost neo Nazi parties to keep power, not being able to back up his incendiary promises made while on campaign, and now it seems that the new lesson has to do with Brexit, the exit of the UK from the European Union, a true lesson in real politik, and the dangers of it, yes, democracy is great, we can choose our leaders (and that´s half of the job, the other half is to force them into transparency and accountability), but we also can be easily manipulated into believing into something that is not true, when emotions prevails over rationality, when cynicism triumphs over expertise.

That seemed to be the story of the UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who commanded his xenophobic right wing party into a battle for the "freedom" of the UK, Farage was dissonant at all times, he set the wheels in motion, but that wasn't enough, Farage was scandalous, unethical and dangerous, but separatists and Euro skeptics needed a stronger and more charismatic figure, and that ultra-conservative part of the Tory Party found that figure in Boris Johnson, a high energy, colorful and charismatic ex London major, Johnson was enormously popular, and by embracing the Brexit flag, he was able to challenge Prime Minister and fellow Tory partner David Cameron's leadership, Johnson was seen by some as the British Donald Trump, an outsider who outshined typical politicians, he used his popularity and the movement already started by Farage, in order to get the United Kingdom out of the European Union, even Labour Party leader Jeremy Corby, a radical left wing leader, aligned himself with Cameron, losing the trust of a part of his party, in order to convince society about the dangers of Brexit, costing him almost his leadership within the LP, but anger and intolerance proved to be stronger, and before the smoke vanished Cameron was out of the game, resigning from his duty, assuming Brexit as his political defeat, Farage resigning from the UKIP, after been exhibited as a xenophobic liar who sold Brexit as something it really wasn´t, and Johnson, he was back stabbed by another Tory figure, the Machiavellian Michael Gove, the person who convinced him in the first place about the Brexit, using him as a battering ram against the Union, against Cameron and even against Corbyn, finally Gove reveled his true intention, with Cameron and Johnson out, which he dubbed publicly as "unfit of leading the party", Gove made cleared that he wanted to be leader of the Tories, and perhaps UK ´s prime minister.

In the end, it looks like Brexit and the fall of the aforementioned politicians was Gove's plan from the beginning, and he followed his plan and performed it in a masterful way, using and dispatching pieces at will polarizing a whole country, but like in the case of another Machiavellian politician, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Gove's house of cards finally came down, as his dream of leading the Conservative Party was shattered by Theresa May, another important Tory figure who prepared to stay apart from Brexit, after all, who would want to cope with a guy like Gove, a politicians “serial killer”, who framed the British into “not listening to experts anymore”, as a leader? His conspiracy was done in a masterful way, but his final move of getting Johnson out of the way of as perhaps too evident, but the way he got rid of his political enemies was impressive.

As the Chilcot Report recently unveiled makes new waves within the UK's agitated political landscape, raising new complains against ex Labour leader Tony Blair participation in the military intervention in Iraq, Corby came out and recognized the Blair and the Party mistakes, reassuring his pro peace stand in a convincing way, regaining some of the political weight Brexit took away for him, now it looks as if an isolated England will land in an unknown territory with a new leader, might it be May or Corby who knows? Corbyn is quickly regaining his pace, making his entrance as a mature left wing leader, and May joining the ranks of sober, strong character women, that seem to be the new antidote to the dilemma displayed by Brooks, with women like Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton leading countries.