POLITICAL scientists have always been distressed by people's negative perception of politics. Most people see politics as a world inhabited by unbridled ambition and unrestrained greed, where people without moral scruples enrich themselves by using their public power to pursue and protect their private interests. It is a den of corruption or rent-seeking, and of people willing to compromise their principles.This is most unfortunate, considering that politics is supposed to be a noble profession where ideally, people are willing to forego their personal interests to serve the many. In fact, for Plato, those engaging in politics have to sacrifice and waive the trappings of privilege, including leaving their families and abandoning their private properties.And yet, what is now painted in the minds of people is the dark side of politics.People tend to image politics in the world of Machiavelli, even if Machiavelli himself is a victim of a gross misreading. Many people think of Machiavelli in the context of a ruthless prince, who would justify the means of politics by valorizing its ends and whose rule subsists on deploying force and in withholding mercy, one who rules by fear and not due to love. This is the Machiavelli that is in the minds of people. Only very few, perhaps limited only to those who study political theory astutely, would know the other side of Machiavelli. Machiavelli talked about the seemingly irreconcilable differences between two political classes, the nobles (grandes) and the masses (popolos). While the nobles seek to dominate, the masses by nature would like to be free of such domination. Most people are stuck with Machiavelli's The Prince (Il Principe) and never appreciate his other work, The Discourses (Discorsi). Those who superficially read Machiavelli's The Prince fail to appreciate that the ruler is one who prefers the side of the masses, and the ruthlessness he deploys is largely to curb the power of the nobility. It is in The Discourses where Machiavelli celebrates his brand of republicanism, which can be labeled as civic humanism, where he saw the conflict between the nobility and the masses as necessary in generating liberty. He saw class conflict as a form of creative tension that leads to the strengthening of republican political institutions, akin to a system of checks and balances. Some would even read The Discourses as the real views of Machiavelli, while The Prince is a satirical representation of how to limit the power of the nobility.And yet, the idea of a Machiavellian as a ruthless dictator, which is a gross misreading, remains the dominant view for the uninitiated and misinformed, in the same way that the world of politics has been libeled as the world of the greedy, the corrupt and the selfish.It is not certain which came first, though: whether it is the fact that politics as practiced is indeed dominated by the greedy, corrupt and selfish that turned it into a dirty word, or that it is the perception of it being dirty that made it into become that kind of world.One needs to just observe the despicable maneuverings of the Trump Republicans who now venture into patently obstructionist forms of politics, even to the point of blocking an important truth-seeking commission to look into the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, if only to advance their political interests. It is simply horrifying to watch the spectacle of people who themselves experienced the horrors of being assaulted, now denying that the act was a form of insurrection. Worse, some of them even liken it to people who were simply taking an ordinary guided Washington D.C. tour.The diminution of politics is indeed horrifying, if not depressing. It has been cheapened because we have opened up the electoral process to accommodate just anyone. While Plato reserved the highest position of guardians to those who are ruled by wisdom, the desire for democracy made public posts a free-for-all prize ready to be taken by anyone with money, gall, ambition and chutzpah. Thus, together with the ambitiously greedy and corrupt, we also end up electing the ambitiously inept. We just recently witnessed an ill-prepared senator failing to defend his own bills, now relying on an appeal to emotion to support his motion to be spared from being asked hard questions. This is the tragic outcome of a kind of politics where anyone can just be elected to political office.Popular culture has reinforced the image of politics as devoid of virtue. From 'Scandal' to 'House of Cards' to 'Game of Thrones,' what we see are representations of politics as a world full of ambitious and greedy men and women deploying the art of power to serve their interests as they indulge in revenge, backstabbing and betrayal. Alliances are no longer emanating from trust but from convenient realignments ruled by the principle that the enemy of your enemy is your friend.But if there is one corrosive element that is now pervasive in politics, it is that of betrayal, where former allies become new enemies simply because of ambition. This is precisely dangerous because it violates the very foundation of a body politic, which is built on trust. Social contract subsists on trust. Political representation is founded on the idea of trust. This is why betrayal of public trust rises to the same level as a high crime that warrants impeachment. When politicians are no longer trustworthy, in the sense that they move around without anchor, effectively even appropriating as reason their loyalty to the people, and not to their parties or patrons, to deodorize their naked ambitions, then politics indeed deserve its fate of being labeled as a den of the unprincipled. If there is any irony, Machiavelli may have provided us a weapon. We the masses just have to keep fighting the corrupt political 'nobility,' even as we yearn for a leader who will check their power and fight for us.
