A Personal Fox Tail

Fox's Experience in the System, Conscience, Faith and Scars

As someone who was in the System of politics for two decades I hope to share some insights for readers, experiences that shape my understanding of the world this Fox lives in.

I can't count how many candidates aspiring to hold office who I met at fundraisers, cookouts in the homes and backyards of wealthy supporters, coffee’s, neighborhood meetings. Educators, insurance salesmen, small business owners, nurses, along with doctors, lawyers, corporate executives, all walks. The pedigreed, privileged candidates usually knew the System, were of it, were just looking for a different angle into it. The average working class candidates had lots of hopes and goals to fix what was wrong with the System. Filled with positive energy that they could make a difference, remake the System into something more responsive to ordinary citizens

Out of all of the newbies, even the ones with the most sincere desire to fix the System for good, in the course of my career maybe 2-5% stayed true, uncorrupted, principled the same as when they went into politics. That figure starts higher, and even remains higher when the politician serves in the minority party, are still on the outside of power even when they are in the halls of it. But the moment they serve in a majority, the moment they hold power from the inside of political power it becomes a matter of months, even days until you see the shift (MTG?). The saying 'power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely' is eternally true.

What happens as one gains power or is in service to power is a thing to be in and an observer of. One of the first things that strikes you is how intoxicating it becomes so quickly. When those with power hand out praise, take notice of you, become interested in what you think, you feel good about it. Really good! Even better than when loved ones and friends do the same thing. Because, power speaks with a louder, more alluring voice to one's ego. "I'm worthy! I've arrived! I'm in the halls of power and making a difference! I see stories before they're on the news, I know way more about those stories than the news is telling, I'm on the inside! Cool!!" Oh, and the rent-seekers who suck up to you. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke the ego. It's a hellofadrug.

So let's say you're above those types of vain indulgences, then there's the whole being effective and advancing your agendas thing. The public policy issues you care most about, like education, health care, safe streets, environment, etc. Your economic security. The well-being of your friends, family, colleagues, supporters. The expectations of all of them and those in the System who can help you advance your agendas…if you help them advance theirs. And that's when negotiations happen.

The Devil is in those negotiations. When you have power and access to power you often don't have a vested interest or strongly-held beliefs about everything that power makes decisions about. You have your core issues and concerns, but you deal with pretty much every facet of life, minutia, stuff you never knew or cared about knowing existed. Those become issues you negotiate away freely. Maybe you take the side of those who make the most compelling case in a fair hearing of it. But most of the time you take the side that others who you care about and want/need something from are on. Those who you're indebted to for helping you on something you do care about, those issues are easy to negotiate over. Not really concerned about the people on the other side.

Because all public policies involve deciding winners and losers. Somebody loses something when laws are passed, rules are enacted. Maybe they deserve to lose something. Maybe they don't. But make no mistake, there's not win-win in public policy. Even if the only loser is taxpayers, just a few pennies a year. Here. And here. And here. And here...losers.

When you're in that environment and making, influencing public policy you're exercising power. And depending on how you've negotiated, who's interests you've negotiated the cumulative effect of it makes each subsequent negotiation that much easier. Lives impacted become less and less of a concern. A jadedness sets in, an entitlement sets in, a self-affirming ego stroke plays inside your head about all of those people you've helped, how good a person you are. And those who've been hurt, lost have no voice inside your head, their losses are minimized, unavoidable, even justifiable. Power.

Three C's of public policymakers I coined. Conscience, Caucus and Constituents:

• Conscience - how you sit with yourself morally and spiritually on an issue, is it true to your values.

• Caucus - how your political party wants you to sit on an issue, it's what gives you more power to achieve your most important policy agenda items, your economic security.

• Constituents - where those who you represent, the voters who elected you, donors, where they sit on an issue.

The Three C's are an easy decision when all three align on the same side. It's those darn 2-1 or 1-2 splits that make it so hard. Do you negotiate away your Conscience to help you achieve your larger agenda items like your Caucus wants you to, do what your Constituents want? Do you turn your back on your Caucus because your Conscience won't allow it and Constituents oppose them, knowing that the party will make your primary agenda issues impossible to achieve? Do you do what your Constituents want you to do, but go against your Caucus and Conscience because, by gosh, they elected you and your job is to do their will?

Negotiation. Negotiation. Negotiation. Negotiation. And one day you have little left of who you were when you first got into politics, stood in backyards fundraisers and promised to fix the System. You've become a part of it. Politics is the art of the possible, not the perfect, they say. And there’s truth to that.

As for those 2-5% who stayed true to themselves, who stayed uncorrupted, principled have one thing in common: Faith. They are people of faith. True faith in their creator. Not faith of convenience. They never negotiated their Conscience. Often they lost their ability to pass many of their most important public policy agenda items because they rejected demands of the Caucus. Or maybe they lost office because they couldn't do what their Constituents asked of them. They stayed true to their Conscience. Because at the end of the day, that's what our creator put us here for. Not our ambitions, not the ambitions of others. For our morality to do what we believe is right. No matter what the consequences are.

Our negotiations we make in pursuit of some greater good we hope to achieve if we just go along with something that doesn't sit right but doesn't rise to our objection, those are the killers of souls. One little one. Begets another little one. Begets another little one. Until it begets big ones. They get easier to make those negotiations with our values each time we make them. Until we're unrecognizable to who we were before we started making them. Happens all the time. Not just politicos. Business owners. Clergy. Coaches. Doctors. Judges. People in positions of power.

Our faith and devotion to our Creator is what keeps us grounded. Keeps our minds and consciences clear. When we answer to a higher authority who isn't other fallen men or to our own grandiosity we stay true to ourselves. We stay connected to humanity. Avoiding the negotiations. Even the small ones. They are the tiny crack in our souls that grow larger and larger.

I had a brief dance with the intoxication of power. Climbing and climbing. Negotiating. I thought I was on my way to becoming a big deal. I didn't seek it at first, but it's very addictive when you get a taste of power.

I had some clarity about what I was becoming in the form of a setback because I took a principled stand against the System. When that happened it became easier to let go of my ambitions and agendas. When I had leaders of both parties warn me not to say something in a public hearing about an abuse of power I witnessed and was attacked for (simply because I was a witness, to preemptively discredit me) it was a clarifying moment. I was told not to say what actually happened because:

"The public already doesn't trust us, and we can't give them more reasons not to trust us. We have to protect the System."

Quote. Verbatim. In other words:

“We lie, the public doesn’t trust us because they know we lie, so we have to lie more to protect the System.”

Sound familiar? That was more than a decade ago. The System. More important than our conscience, our morals, more important than the people the System is supposed to serve. Clarifying. Let’s just say I believe Madison Cawthorn. And he’s not in the System anymore because he said what he saw.

I stood my ground, though I didn't say all I knew, my negotiation. And then I slowly withdrew from the professional political class. I'm no longer directly in the system. I just poke around it from the outside these days.

I took three years to travel the world, put everything I owned in storage, stayed in hostels, hiked through jungles, over frozen tundra, took small boats up long coasts and rivers, rode in crowded buses, ate strange foods, bonded with people and cultures that enrich me to this day. I detoxified and reclaimed my soul. I reclaimed my place with humanity.

I never got lost in the System, truth is I was always a little off to the side while I was in it, kept one foot in that world, the other in the regular world most of the time. It's how I stayed grounded. It limited me, my career, I was never fully trusted by the System even though I rubbed shoulders with people in the highest positions of power in my state and DC. But while my income was less than it could've been if I had both feet inside that world my independence gave me the strength to fight the System when I did as I did.

But it is a bitch going against it. I have the scars. Which is why the 95-98% don't. Negotiations. Including turning your eyes away from the bad you witness. Thing about scars the 95-98% don't get is that they make you stronger where you were injured. I love my scars. I earned them. I have my sanity. And my soul. This Fox wouldn't choose any other way. These days I try to help others navigate the System. Those scars continue to give me the strength to fight the System in different ways now. Sharing that strength with others, helping them to protect their humanity, while making a positive difference in our shared world.