Why we chose the wrong leaders

It may be worth your while getting to know about Brian Klaas. Brian is a political scientist who writes for (among others) the Washington Post, and he does a podcast called Power Corrupts which is worth a listen.

Brian's main argument, in his recent book Corruptible, is less that power corrupts, but that power attracts the wrong people in the first place - it's less a matter of power corrupting people, but that political power skews towards people who will be corrupt.

Here is a New Statesman profile of him:

“I conducted 500 interviews with some of the worst people around – and they weren’t normal,” he recalled. “There are quirks about them, there’s something wrong with some of them, but they’re all very, very good at getting into power. And that’s not an accident. There are ways you can counteract that tendency or amplify it, and I think we’re unfortunately amplifying it quite a lot.”

And...

"...power-hungry people are, by definition, more likely to seek power. Whether running for national office or applying to manage the local homeowners’ association, those who get off on the idea of controlling others naturally put themselves forward, while most people look at the stress, scrutiny and public pressure, and politely decline."

It's an interesting side-point that the way politics is conducted - and particularly in the social media age - we seem to be creating a climate in which only people who have very thick skins, and who are ruthless can survive. So, when bad actors deliberately poison public discourse, it has a profoundly anti-democratic outcome (which is the intention). And when people with low stakes in a debate weigh in, promoting distrust, it exacerbates it further.