Where Devils Fear To Tread

It may seem like politicians are completely amoral and capable of anything to get ahead. But even the truly sociopathic politicians are constrained by the limits of of the general public. As an extreme example, there may well be some politicians who wouldn't be above having an opponent killed, but the fact is that even our jaded electorate would turn on such a person.

Politics has lots of lines that politicians will not cross. But the problem is that we can only guess what those lines are. I used a ridiculous example above, where we can be sure murder would end the perpetrator's career. By in many lesser actions, we can't be sure it's a career-ending-move because we've never seen anyone do it. For instance, there are different levels of slander: a politician telling outright, easily-proven lies about their opponent would likely be punished by the voters, but more esoteric lies from a supporter kept at arm's-length are generally accepted.

That arrangement keeps politics a little more civil than you would expect, given the morality of its participants. And sometimes it’s kept more civil than even the standards of the electorate, because politicians aren’t willing to take the risk of pushing too hard against assumed standards of behaviour. At any given time, amoral pols are kept from breaking rules by the threat of the consequences, even though - unbeknownst to them - they could get away with it. It all works because you need skills of logic and self-preservation to get ahead in politics, even if you don't need morality.

To me, this is the greatest tragedy of populist maverick politicians. These are people who not only lack the sense of morality, but also the intelligence and logic. They may even get their popularity from their recklessness. And thus, they often cross the lines smarter politicians fear to cross. That, it may end their career; indeed, given enough time, it will. But until that fatal mistake, they may cross some lines that turn out not to have the fatal consequences everyone assumed. And having shown everyone that the line is an illusion, they've added it to the repertoires of more mainstream politicians.

Of course, I'm currently thinking about Donald Trump as the example here. There were worries when he burst onto the scene and into the lead among the Republican candidates. And now, he's committed career suicide by insulting John McCain's military record, leading people to breathe a sigh of relief that he won't get much closer to a position of power.

But in the process, he did step over at least one of those imaginary line: he's let everyone know that you can go to a new level of demonizing. Anti-immigration candidates previously assumed that courting the racist vote would require insults against Mexicans to be veiled, lest you be seem bigoted and get out of the mainstream. But from now on, they'll know that there is no punishment if you come right out and say what the worst of the electorate is thinking.