Stop yielding power to predators

One simple hack to world peace and prosperity

The Lion Hunt by Eugène Delacroix - Hans Thorwid / Nationalmuseum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52114938

Predators have been on my mind lately. I’ve wondered how many amongst us could be psychopaths, motivated solely by self-interest and dominating others, unreasonably proud of their self-claimed superiority. We currently live in a not-so Wonderland where facts are their opposite: the target of an aggressive war is also, miraculously, considered responsible for its attempted seizure. It would be absurd were millions of lives not under attack and many more threatened.

Each day witnesses assaults against sovereign people. Cataloguing them, as some are doing now, attempts to corral the attacks so that we can make sense of them. If you can understand it, perhaps you can erect an effective defense. But the chaos of attack is overwhelming by design. Packs of African wild dogs charge a herd of prey, exhaust them from the attack’s chaos, and isolate individual animals to bring them down. Fear and uncertainty are the predator’s tools. The confusion is tactical. What you perceive may be driven by a narrative that means you no good.

Sometimes, it helps to step away from a confusing problem and reframe it. Consider: what would be possible if we didn’t elect predators?

• We could legally eradicate identity-based discrimination and recognize universal equality. I’ve been waiting a lifetime for the US to recognize my essential equality, and women aren’t even a minority. Privileging some identities and restricting others is predatory.

• We might realize universal suffrage, making elections fairer by eliminating gerrymandering, automatically registering every citizen eligible to vote, and removing obstacles for legitimate voters to cast their votes. Ensuring every citizen who’s eligible to vote can vote and not manipulating how those votes are counted would go far to undo the current disenfranchisement that produces unfair elections. Partisans design unfair practices to maintain power against the will of the people.

• We could wipe out poverty and reduce today’s historic levels of income inequality. Poverty is not inevitable, and it is not simply the result of bad life decisions. Poverty is a policy choice. Policy could eliminate it.

• We could make it costly for elected officials to lie. Disinformation—lying—is a predatory tactic to hide the truth from the prey.

• We could enact firearm safety laws. The failure to produce meaningful reform preventing gun violence currently serves the gun industry’s top echelon while endangering everyone else.

• We could rationalize immigration law by basing it on facts rather than xenophobia and racism.

Changes like these wouldn’t replace capitalism with socialism or communism. Competition doesn’t require predatory behavior. Quite the reverse: a truly competitive market doesn’t provide an unfair advantage to any player. Monopolization reduces competition.

Capitalism expands when buyers in the market have increased disposable income and therefore more buying power. It thrives when people are confident of stable outcomes. Made fairer, the economy would diversify and prosper.

Domestic security would flourish. If owning a gun were considered a privilege in the US—similar to the privilege to drive a car without endangering others—rather than an inviolate right, the effect could be transformative for the nation’s children, families, and communities.

None of this would change the number of predators amongst us, but it would impose a greater social and economic cost for predatory behavior. Misogynists and racists and haters of all kinds might feel social pressure to conform to the new standards for normal social behavior. We’re now seeing the opposite effect: empowering violent extremists has increased the number of hate crimes.

Not giving power to predators doesn’t inevitably position one political party over another. A lifelong Democrat, I’ve seen plenty of racist, misogynistic, homophobic, power-hungry people in my party from local politics to the highest office. My argument isn’t partisan. When elected officials make policy, they should prioritize the benefits to their constituents rather than to lobbyists or themselves. I struggle to imagine a voter who’d disagree, even people who support predatory politicians.

Why have a government if it doesn’t benefit all the people who empower and fund it?

How to identify a predator

Lucky for us, predators prefer not to hide their lights under a bushel. They figure that dominating others places them at the apex of society. They celebrate their aggressiveness and hatred of others. Here are some easy tells.

Cruelty to animals. Thanks to true crime dramas, we know that serial killers start their careers by torturing and killing small animals both wild and domesticated. For some reason, we don’t naturally apply the same logic to political actors who kill animals for no other reason than proving their dominance. Kristi Noem’s senseless killing of her dog, and her flaunting of it,¹ should have disqualified her for any position affecting human safety. Instead, she successfully turned her anecdote into a bullet point on her resumé and is now leading a department² charged with keeping people safe. Similarly, people who pay large sums to murder animals just so that they can pose with their ‘trophy’ signal unambiguously that they are predators.

Verbally attacking others with de-humanizing language. When a person refers to other people as animals (dog, pig, horse-faced, rat, or vermin), he is telling you he is a predator. When people demean others by calling them ‘sheep,’ they’re claiming the identity of the wolf, not the shepherd.

Campaigning against unnamed people. During a political campaign, it’s fair to campaign against your opponent’s policies, actions, statements, and perceived values. When a politician creates ads vilifying groups of people, he manifests his predatory intentions.

Photo ops holding weapons. A Congressman’s Christmas card featuring his family holding firearms says many things. It tells you that he values the gun lobby (and his own financial well-being) more than his religion (Jesus was a pacifist). It sends a message intended for titans in the gun industry, not his constituents. It states unequivocally that gun lobby money is more important to him than the lives of schoolchildren.

Lying. We’re told it’s in the nature of politicians to stretch the truth a bit so that they can put a positive spin on something they’re being criticized for. I’ve seen many of my preferred candidates manipulate and embellish the truth; they sacrifice trust when they do. We don’t have to accept these behaviors. Let’s make it acceptable for officials to acknowledge mistakes and explain what they learned. In expecting politicians to present themselves as flawless, we open the door to outright deception, which is predatory. (And obviously, anyone whose lies are bold and numerous should never hold a position of trust.)

Sexual harassment. This feels like an odd time to live, when voters can’t be bothered that a candidate is an adjudicated sexual predator. However, it’s not a new phenomenon. Polite society has tolerated men preying on women throughout recorded history.

Little mystery surrounds a person’s predatory tendencies because they usually flaunt it. Culturally, their characteristics may be interpreted as strength, transparency, and boldness. They gull supporters into thinking someone else will be preyed upon. Using a simple rule—don’t give power to predators—takes a sword to the Gordian knot of character assessment. If the candidate is a predator, no one is safe. You can become prey, regardless if you consider yourself aligned with the predator. By definition the predator has no allegiance beyond himself.

Demos accountability

Elected officials must be accountable to constituents for democracy to work. The state relies on the demos, or common people, performing their role, one that requires more than voting every couple of years. Let’s consider what that might look like, using a familiar example.

Politicians often seek opportunities to bring new industry to their communities. Typically, they announce that Big Name Corporation has selected their city/county/state for its newest location, which will bring some large number of new jobs to the area. Sometimes they display a maquette showing what the new industry’s worksite will look like. They will likely mention how many dollars the industry will bring to the area.

These announcements typically provide little specific information. They deploy whatever marketing collateral the company publishes, extolling its business and the tremendous benefit it will bring to the area. The politician makes the announcement with only a few qualifying questions from reporters. The politician expects applause.

How should the demos respond?

They shouldn’t rely on an announcement to inform them fully. They should demand answers to their questions. Once informed, they must advise the politician on what they want the deal to look like, whether the politician asks for advice or not. They must act as the stakeholders they are.

Rather than listening passively to announcements, they should require the politician to provide them with answers to questions like these:

• Do all of the new jobs pay a living wage? How many are guaranteed full time, and how many have contingent scheduling? What benefits will the company offer the lowest-paid positions? What is the salary multiple for the CEO based on the lowest paying job?

• Will the company provide career-advancing training (that is, training that can be used not just at this company but elsewhere), or does it plan to train only on the company’s processes?

• What is the company’s track record with the EEOC, worker safety, and labor relations?

• How will the company protect the water, soil, and air? How will the community know if they’re following through on their promises?

• Is the company being offered tax incentives, and what are they? Since the taxpayers will have to subsidize any tax abatements on offer, they are stakeholders and should have a voice. What will be the impacts on local infrastructure (traffic, roads, bridges, parking, green spaces, energy) and who’s going to pay for infrastructure maintenance and enhancement that benefit the company?

• Why did the company select this area to locate its business?

Any company opening a new location will have spent months if not years in collecting data, analysis, and robust planning that would provide answers for any questions a constituent or investigative reporter might have. By the time the announcement is made, the company and the politician have spent untold hours and expense negotiating terms. The community should demand at least equal attention from the politician in considering their concerns and requirements.

If the politician spends capital on the industry at the expense of the community, he shows his hand: he’s using his constituents and the resources of their community for his and the company’s gain. This is a win/lose strategy. It is predatory.

Voters are long accustomed to PR announcements about changes to their community. Often, the local business reporter covers these stories, promoting them as news. The politician needs constituency support in order to rip them off. The constituents should refuse to offer themselves as prey.

Bringing in new industry may not be bad policy; it depends on the deal. It’s even possible that tax incentives could result in a net positive; public-private initiatives aren’t necessarily bad.³ To make this kind of initiative good policy requires working with the community to attract new employers. The deal shouldn’t be made without the community’s advice and consent. The elected official’s alignment should be with his constituents first and secondarily with the industry, not the reverse.

The question is: where do you find such a leader?

Attracting the right leaders

Brian Klaas wrote a book on this topic: Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us.⁴ One of his theses is that good systems attract the right people. A memorable example consists of his comparison of police recruitment videos from the US state of Georgia and from New Zealand. (See the link below for a shorter-form version of one of the book’s chapters.)

How to Reduce Police Violence

New Zealand’s recruitment tag line is: Do you care enough to be a cop? One of the ads (“Freeze”) is pure entertainment: very fit uniformed cops embedded in the community help an elderly man cross a street safely and stop a dog from stealing. There’s dancing and parkour and laughs, but the message is serious: do you care enough to be a cop? Another ad (“Hungry Boy”) approaches the subject emotionally. It depicts a crowded urban street in which a small boy is rooting in rubbish bins for scraps of food. Around him, adults walk past, unseeing. Two women stop to help. The ad asks which kind of person you are: would you care enough to help? The ads were highly effective: applications rose and the types of applications changed—more women and people of diverse cultures applied. Crucially, the ads attracted people who were drawn to public service rather than power.

By contrast, the ad from Georgia (“Doraville SWAT”) was designed to attract the opposite type of profile. Its first image is a death skull. The heavy metal score is punctuated only by a chant of “Die!”. Its video images are of a SWAT tank running an exercise in a neighborhood. Smoke bombs and heavily armed soldiers spill out of the tank, aiming at the area around them. The solder/police actors are anonymous; no faces are visible. The battle zone is Doraville. The police are armed against citizen enemies. This ad, unambiguously, seeks to connect with men who are attracted to using violence for power over others.

If you want a police service that will ‘protect and serve,’ then you should use NZ’s recruitment strategy. Police occupy positions of power. Trying to change norms of behavior after you’ve empowered a pack of wolves is futile. You have to start much earlier, in recruiting tomorrow’s leaders.

Fortunately, that’s the level where most people can have the greatest impact: in local and regional races. Predators have been funding these races for decades, just for this purpose, since low-level campaign budgets are relatively cheap. They can farm future high-level positions from the seeds sown in local races. Citizens who inform themselves can also have outsized influence in elections that are voted by thousands rather than millions. They can create incentives for people drawn to serve their constituents rather than feed off them.

Removing predators from elected office and holding them accountable for representing the people’s interests and not their own takes effort. Voters can’t just set it and forget it. They must inform themselves, despite the overwhelming presence of misinformation and lies.

Electing people who are motivated by power and then allowing them to act without accountability serves up the demos—you and me—on a platter. To prevent it takes time and effort. We must each assume the responsibility of maintaining democracy. It’s an investment without an immediate pay-out.

But what it can produce in dividends would be transformative: lives lived in dignity, safety, and prosperity. An end to hunger. An end to war.

Isn’t that worth it?

Ellie’s Corner

Are you done YET?

Ellie has been waiting patiently for me to finish writing. It’s never done, girl, sorry to say. I just get tired and submit.

Thanks for reading.

1. She defied the counsel of her advisors to downplay this anecdote. She was proud of what it signalled. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/06/kristi-noem-dog-killing-story-00156290

2. As of this writing, Noem is the US Secretary of Homeland Security.

3. But, caveat emptor.

4. He also produced a companion podcast series called “Power Corrupts.” If you want to learn more about the topic and be entertained, check it out.