The Self-Promotion Industrial Complex
Let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea
Consider this scenario: It is early August 2021. Too many news cycles have passed without a certain “rising-star” politician trending on Twitter or seeing his face on the news, so the politician wants to weigh in publicly on a wedge issue to get some buzz back around his name.
In-person school seems like a good issue. The US was fresh off the Provincetown Covid-19 Outbreak, where double-vaccinated beachgoers seemingly burst what remained of the bubble that vaccines were highly effective at preventing transmission. The country was also in the midst of a rise in Covid-19 cases, driven by the Delta variant, after a relatively benign late spring/early summer.
He knew what he wanted to say. The evening before putting out a statement, he reviewed his talking points:
Cases rising significantly
Delta is faster and potentially worse for kids
Unknowns of Long Covid
Upshot: We must consider remote learning until we bring down the numbers.
That night, however, the politician has an experience right out of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but with only one spirit—the ghost of Covid future. When the politician woke, he knew two things beyond the shadow of a doubt:
First, he was dead wrong on the issue of remote school. The cost-benefit analysis was lopsided in favor of keeping schools open. Remote school provided a negligible effect (if any) on bringing down population-wide transmission, but it was extremely harmful to thousands of children, particularly those with disabilities or from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Second, maintaining the wedge issue of in-person vs. remote school in August 2021—and touting remote school as the safer, sensible option—would be extremely helpful to his political career. He would be able to seamlessly pivot positions in mid-2022, and with the help of a friendly media and public health apparatus, he would suffer no political harm. Advocating for in-person school, on the other hand, would have opened him up to criticism from within his supporters and caused him to miss his “moment.”
The $64,000 question: Knowing what he knows, what does the politician do?
You don’t have to be a cynic to know that the smart money is on the politician choosing whatever cements his own status. The issue doesn’t matter. Right or left doesn’t matter. It’s all just a jobs program, now the status quo in the political and media spheres.
These people live for wedges. They’re the dogs who never actually want to catch the car—the endorphins come from fans cheering them on (and throwing money at them to ensure reelection to continue the chase). I truly could not tell you what most of them personally believe or think would be best for their constituents. I find myself feeling like Lord Varys describing Littlefinger, and I doubt I’m alone:
This phenomenon isn’t limited to politicians and high-visibility issues either. It’s everywhere. A profession’s underlying purpose has become incidental to job security, personal fulfillment, clout, or advancement.
I’m not saying people should be joyless automatons. Of course we ought to derive happiness, or meaning, or something more than mere task completion in our day-to-day lives. We also expect conflict when we’re hashing out ideas in the public square. Sharp elbows and barbed one-liners are expected when politicos attempt to get a message to resonate and shake people out of apathy. That’s part of the gig. Unfortunately, we’re well beyond that.
Politicians and the public-facing professional class have almost uniformly abdicated duty for self-aggrandizement. It works because we allow it to work. And it’s spreading.