Алистер Смит - The Dictator's Handbook - Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Winston Churchill is certainly a candidate for Britain’s greatest statesman. He is deservedly famous for his wonderful oratory. Yet patriotic rhetoric alone was not enough to defeat Hitler’s Nazi Germany in World War II. Churchill did not just deliver rhetoric; he delivered policy results too. He convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to implement the Lend-Lease program that enabled a virtually bankrupt Britain to keep fighting. He converted the British economy to an efficient wartime footing and found ways to pressure the Axis powers on multiple fronts. He was fondly admired and praised by the vast majority of Britons at the end of the war. Yet Clement Atlee’s Labour Party decisively defeated Churchill’s Conservative Party at elections held in July 1945. Technically speaking, World War II, a war that Winston Churchill, as much as any single individual, might be credited with having won, wasn’t even over yet. And already the people of Britain were ready to toss Winston out.

Churchill famously stated in November 1942, following Britain’s victory at El Alamein, that, “I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” British voters ensured he did not have to. Churchill offered the policies of continued austerity to make Britain great again. After six hard years of war, rationing, and sacrifice, these policies had little appeal. Atlee chose to promote the National Health Service and the creation of a welfare state over reestablishing international dominance. He won the battle for good ideas. Few would deny Churchill did a magnificent job and he was much loved. But it was Atlee who won.

Coalition Dynamics

That democrats need so many supporters makes them vulnerable. If you can find an issue over which the incumbent’s supporters disagree, then it will soon be your turn to lead. Divide and conquer is a terrific principle for coming to power in a democracy—and one of the greatest practitioners of this strategy was Abraham Lincoln, who propelled himself to the US presidency by splitting the support for the Democratic Party in 1860.

During the Illinois senate race in 1858, Abraham Lincoln forced Stephen Douglas to declare his position on slavery just one year after the Supreme Court’s Dredd Scott decision made clear that Congress did not have the right to ban slavery in federal territories. Douglas was cornered. If he said that slavery could be excluded, he would win the election in Illinois but he would shake the foundations of his party; if he said that it couldn’t, he would lose the election and thereby diminish his chances of being the Democrat’s presidential nominee in 1860. Douglas declared that the people could exclude slavery and won the race, of course, but his response on slavery came at the expense of dividing the Democratic Party two years later in the 1860 presidential election, clearing the way for Lincoln’s coalition to elect him president.

Lincoln, more than any other winner of the presidency, foresaw that he would not be popular among a vast segment of voters in the presidential election. He understood that his best chance, maybe even his only chance for election in 1860, lay in dividing and conquering. Had Douglas answered Lincoln’s question with a pro-slavery response (that is, in support of the Dredd Scott Decision as the law of the land), he almost certainly would have lost the senate race to Lincoln. That might have kept the Democrats united in 1860, but it would have boosted Lincoln’s prospects as the senate incumbent with a popular following. By answering as he did, Douglas guaranteed that his own party would divide over his presidential bid. With competitors Breckinridge and Bell contesting the presidency, Douglas lost his opportunity to win the southern vote, dooming him—and his Democratic rivals—to defeat, even though Lincoln’s vote total was slim. Lincoln beat the divided Democrats with less than 40 percent of the popular vote and almost no votes in the South. Similarly, Bill Clinton, with just 43 percent of the vote beat the incumbent President George H. W. Bush (who won 38 percent of the popular vote) in 1992, in no small measure thanks to the run by H. Ross Perot (who got 19 percent of the vote).11 Lincoln understood that he needed to keep the coalition as small as possible—even in an inherently large coalition system.

Lincoln did not lose sight of this important principal as he sought reelection in 1864. Seeing that his prospects were not great, he maneuvered to expand the set of interchangeables and influentials so that he could forge a winning coalition out of those who previously had no say at all. How did he do this? He introduced absentee ballots so that soldiers could vote, with an especially important impact in New York. It is widely believed that the vote of soldiers carried the state for Lincoln in his 1864 race against General George B. McClellan. Lincoln was a master at using the rules of politics to his advantage, winning while being unpopular with a large swath of the American people.

In democracies, politics is an arms race of ideas. Just as the democrat has to be responsive to the people when governing, when seeking office it helps to propose policies that the voters like and it pays to want to do more (as opposed to less)—even if the economic consequences are damaging down the road (when you’re no longer in office). Satisfy the coalition in the short run. When democratic politicians lament “mortgaging our children’s future,” they’re really regretting that it was not them who came up with the popular policy that voters actually want. Sure, voters might feel guilty about the latest $1 trillion program, but see if they actually vote to reject it. With parents like that, what children need enemies?

A Last Word on Coming to Power: The Ultimate Fate of Sergeant Doe

Our account of coming to power began with the story of Liberia’s Sergeant Doe. His end provides a useful cautionary tale for those seeking power. Coming to power and staying in power, as the rest of this book makes clear, are very different things.

Sergeant Doe knew where Liberia’s money was. And so long as he knew where it was and used it to keep the army faithful he was able to survive numerous attempts to overthrow him. The trouble is that you only have to lose once, and that question—Where’s the money?—ended up being the last thing that Sergeant Doe ever heard.

With the end of the cold war, the United States no longer needed Doe’s assistance, and in 1989 the US government cut off his future aid. Rivals Charles Taylor and Prince Johnson, backed by the governments of Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, saw their opportunity and launched an insurgency. Doe sent soldiers to counter them, but rather than act as a professional army ought to, his soldiers proceeded to rape, pillage, and kill, not exactly endearing themselves to the very people whose support might have saved Doe.

Civilians flocked to join the revolt. Showing his characteristic lack of statesmanship or judgment, Doe decided to take a car and personally go off in search of recently arrived Nigerian peacekeepers. Following a gun battle that killed all of Doe’s entourage, Prince Johnson captured the president and videotaped his subsequent interrogation. The interrogators repeated the same questions over and over again before Johnson turned to cutting off Doe’s ear and eating it: “Where is the money? What is the bank account number?” Doe didn’t answer. Maybe, knowing he was going to die regardless, he figured at least by keeping silent his family could enjoy the fruits of his labor, living out their lives in a comfortable exile.

Doe was incompetent at running a country. He drove an already poor nation into even deeper poverty and civil war. But he knew the essence of coming to power. Although dressed up in many forms, successful challengers follow basic principles. They offer greater expected rewards to the essential supporters of the current leader than those essentials currently receive. Unfortunately for the challenger, the incumbent has a significant advantage because the members of the established winning coalition can be confident that their leader will keep on lining their pockets or providing the public policies they want. But if the incumbent is known to be dying, takes too much for himself, chooses the wrong policies, or is seen to have only weak loyalty from his critical backers, then the door swings wide open for a challenger to step in and depose the incumbent.