When I go home to Michigan or Chicago, I get some common questions from family and friends. The most frequent is: How do you like working in politics?
In the words of Lucille Bluth, “I don’t understand the question and I won’t respond to it.”
I had one job in politics as a legislative assistant for a Michigan state representative. It was a pretty good job, a great one at the time (I was in college). I mostly answered emails from constituents and helped my boss draft legislation.
When you work for a politician, you help them campaign. You also help them campaign for members of the same party. I had no interest in that.
Politics is war. Now I don’t mind fighting, but there aren’t many battles worth fighting. As a general rule, politicians are amorphous blobs willing to do whatever it takes to ensure one thing: re-election.
We can talk about the separation of powers, how to interpret the constitution, the proper role of government, but at the end of the day politics is about gaining and wielding power. Nobody exemplifies this better than Donald Trump. Oh, and you’re kidding yourself if you think the Democrats are innocent of this. The weakest political criticisms are those of hypocrisy. People are hypocritical in politics all the time and there is no punishment for it. Political actors do not care about rules and ensuring those rules are followed. They care about promoting those of their political tribe. That matters more than procedural concerns.
I don’t work in politics. So what is it I do?
I have mostly worked at places that deal with ideas. I worked at a think tank, a student leadership network, and am now at an academic institute. The exact vision and strategy of each organization has been distinct. They all share the goal of fighting the battle of ideas and shifting the intellectual conversation which, in turn, would change the behavior of politicians.
If you have asked me this question and I have responded angrily, I apologize. I know you mean well. And I understand for most people, there is no difference between politicians debating policy and eggheads at think tanks doing the same thing.
Politicians have a seat at the decision-making table. Their power to create change is, in theory, vast. But they are so constrained by interest groups, public opinion, and political alliances their votes are often predetermined for them.
Us eggheads admittedly don’t have that seat at the decision-making table. But it’s overrated.
Ideas matter. And breathtaking ideas, like those of Adam Smith or Ayn Rand, have amazing staying power.