The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a

Politician

Hi kid--yeah, congrats on that student council election thing. Lucky those mysterious photos of your opponent sacrificing chickens to Beelzebub surfaced just before the election, eh? Yeah, that photoshop is an amazing program...

Let me guess--the politics bug's bitten you, right? Well, making a career of it is a popularity contest on a much grander scale than you won here. I hope you've got what it takes:

First, you'll likely come to it with some ideals. You'll go to work for the candidate who shares your viewpoint on whatever topic is near and dear to your heart--your viewpoint on abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control--whatever. You'll learn the first skill of climbing the political ladder--pretending to listen. I can tell right now by the way you're nodding your head and doing the whole "eye contact" thing that you'll be good at this. You'll listen to halfwits pronounce their take on the ills of society and you'll pretend to be blown away by their insights. Your only wish, you'll assure them, is that you could somehow find a way to make the great vision they articulate somehow come to fruition. (But don't put it in those words if you're politicking south of the Mason-Dixon or anywhere more than 20 miles from a university campus.)

You'll party hard with others of your political ilk, and only under the influence of whatever fuels your parties will you admit that most of what you believe is rooted in fundamentally flawed ideology, but what the hell--it's the lesser of the evils you see all around you. Of course, bright-eyed and sincere on Monday mornings you pretend those discussions never happened.

You'll go through college honing your skills as a political organizer, and also put yourself out there as a university senate candidate, and you'll jump into the youth wing of whatever party you're most comfortable with.

After college, you go to grad school, and continue to devote your spare time to campaigns and causes. Your resumé is impressive, and it's no surprise when a candidate for your party is suddenly unable to run--perhaps another mysterious photoshop victim--and you are tapped as the replacement candidate. You have the advantage of being younger, fresher and more attractive than your opponent, but you quickly realize that as a newcomer, the political back room crowd isn't eager to shove piles of money your way. Meanwhile, your opponent's campaign is flush with cash, and is going to spend you into the ground. You have no choice--you have to quickly learn to whore yourself out to the people who matter.

This is final defeat of your conscience and integrity--you bargain away your personal beliefs in return for promises of financing and support--and realize that you're becoming one of the established hacks you always despised. It is only the sweet taste of your first victory that takes away the bitter shame.

The honeymoon won't last long though--there are political debts to pay, and as you continue up the ladder, it will get easier and easier to ignore the big issues and focus on the stupid, mundane bickering that gives you more public relations mileage. Why worry about children starving by the millions in an African draught when there are issues like banning pitbulls or protecting the flag to worry about?

Unfortunately, you'll succumb to the same delusion as most politicians--that of your own invincibility. You will almost flaunt your mistresses while playing the devoted family man, and you'll spend your weekends sampling drugs from the same dealers who you paint as the threat to all that is good about our society when spewing your political rhetoric for the cameras.

It's only a matter of time before the kid you shafted back here in high school, or someone like him, gets back at you with photos or other documentation of your hypocrisy. When the heat gets bad enough, you'll bow out, and go into seclusion for a year or so--buy a sailboat with the money fed you by drug companies or arms manufacturers and explore the South Pacific for a while. When you come back you'll quickly be hired by one of these same firms as a lobbyist, and you'll go to work corrupting others you've worked and partied with in government--it saves a lot of time already knowing their tastes in narcotics or perversions, and you'll have a better expense account than you've ever imagined...