Conviction or Opportunism?

The last month has seen perhaps two of the most shameless acts of political opportunism that I can remember.

The first culprit was Chris Christie. The New Jersey governor could see that he wasn’t going to win the race to the Republican nomination himself, but he fancied some high office. So first he destroyed Marco Rubio in a debate using his brilliant bullying style. Then he withdrew, and surprised everyone by endorsing Donald Trump.

Now perhaps Christie likes Trump personally. It is hard to see how he could endorse Trump’s policies, since there don’t appear to be any substantial ones. There might be an element of believing that Trump has more chance of beating Clinton than Cruz, and even that Trump would be less disastrous as president as Cruz. But it is hard to escape a conclusion that his motives were more self-serving. He calculated that Trump was going to win, that everyone would reluctantly have to get in line behind him, and that he may as well be the first and put himself in line for VP or some other office or at least lots of publicity.

The second example is Boris Johnson. Boris is an intelligent man, and knows that leaving the EU would be a reckless gamble for Britain. He has spoken many times as a pro-European. But he has declared himself in support of the Brexit campaign in the upcoming referendum.

In this case, it is hard to even find a motive that is not self-serving. Johnson has the ambition to be the next leader of the Conservative party and the next Prime Minister, since David Cameron has announced that he will resign before the next general election and it is hard to see Labour winning that. To become leader, Boris will need some distinctive and popular positions among Conservative MP’s and grassroots activists. What better way to achieve this than by joining the Brexit camp? He is probably hoping that the campaign will end in narrow but glorious failure, but if it succeeds be calculates that he will be Tory leader before Christmas, and if it fails he will still be the next leader, but in 2019. If he had campaigned to stay, his chances would have been diminished in either outcome.

My first reaction to such behaviour is to lose respect for the people. How can I trust someone who places power above all principle? Obviously, not everyone feels the same way, or people like Christie would have very short political careers. I suppose their argument is that they have unusual management skills, and simply having them in power is worth a lot because they will perform better than the rest.

In some ways an extreme version of the same trait is Donald Trump. By his own admission, we should treat much of what he says on the campaign trail with a large grain of salt. He is just saying what it takes to gain votes and power, and we should not expect his choices in power to resemble his campaign claims. He feels we should support him because of his management skills, his marketing skills, and his independence from vested interests.

Actually, for the domestic agenda at least, that is not such a bad prospectus. Independence is valuable, he can tackle issues on merit rather than dogma or simply opposing anything from the other side. Marketing is valuable too, the domestic role of president is largely cheerleader or using the bully pulpit to campaign for carefully selected changes, and Trump would be excellent at that. Management skills are valuable too, but I am not convinced that Trump has those.

For the foreign agenda, where the president has real influence, it is hard to see Trump being anything other than a disaster. Imagine him visiting China and making a joke about penis size. Sadly, the scenario is not out of the question.

The converse of opportunism in politics is conviction. One reason why Trump has succeeded in getting close to the nomination is the lack of any real conviction among his rivals. Cruz has some conviction, but of a negative kind: as a lawyer, he seems to regard finding smart arguments to disparage opponents as a substitute for policy setting. It is also clear that he is in the pocket of donors. Rubio and Bush may have had sound policies, but lacked personal conviction and were clearly puppets for groups of donors who have lost the right of public respect.

Sadly the Democrat race is not much more impressive. Clinton has reduced herself to claiming to be a clone of Obama, but whereas Obama clearly had some conviction allied to a smart dose of pragmatism, Clinton appears to lack the former, and again, is clearly in hock to vested interests. Bernie Sanders is a wonderful conviction politician, so it is no wonder that he has campaigned well despite a platform far removed from the perceived centre of public opinion.

Should we pray to always have strong conviction politicians to choose between? It is not so simple. Chavez, Hitler, Le Pen or Putin are or were not short of conviction, and behaved quite consistently in office. One risk of excessive conviction is similar to excessive opportunism, which is power tends to corrupt, at first in the naïve belief of personal infallibility and later often out of greed or vengeance.

When I Googled conviction politician, most of the articles that came up were about Margaret Thatcher. You usually knew that Maggie was speaking from her heart and she was consistent in following her agenda even when it was not the path of least resistance. Her convictions were far from my own, but I have to admire the way she set out a vision, convinced people to trust her and then implemented without wavering.

If I look at current politicians I admire most, Obama and Merkel for example, they have often been accused of a lack of vision and of bending with the wind. In Germany, a new verb merkeln means to do little and await developments. In both cases, I find the charges rather unfair. Both are rather consistent in their values, and both have been courageous, and ultimately effective leaders.

So conviction may not be necessary, while core values are. Determination and a degree of pragmatism are also important. An eye for the long term seems to be important too, and the humility to look beyond one’s own legacy. Finally, some management skills must be helpful, and it is here that Obama has not always succeeded – remember the launch of Obamacare?

The best cocktail also depends on the context. Mandela was lacking in management skills, but obviously transparent conviction was what was necessary at the time. Love her or hate her, Maggie Thatcher might have had the best cocktail for her time too.

What may be disastrous is the absence of any meaningful conviction politicians. That describes congress and the two parties in the US currently, and it is that which opens the way for blatant opportunism, or indeed for someone of noxious conviction. It does not help that congress has become unrepresentative due to gerrymandering, and has been captured by big money. The far right in Europe may be advancing through a similar vacuum there.

So what should we pray for? The best option for me must be an Obama, with conviction and values in tune with mine and with some hope of getting things done. In the absence of that happy option, cynical though it seems, the best option might be the competent naked opportunist. No wonder then that Johnson and Christie are not driven out of town.