There’s a false but persistent notion that a powerful person must, after all, have good judgment: how could he or she be so well-situated without discernment of the highest order? One often hears this expressed as an assertion of flawless understanding: “You don’t really think someone as successful as X could possibly be wrong about A, B, or C? He’s too sharp, clever, wise for that!”
False, yet oft-repeated with passion and insistence from among the toads of the status quo: “How could you doubt me, seeing all these things I have, and all these things I have done? Trust me, I am sure to be a success yet again.”
It’s a false notion, as even established people and institutions often meet reversals. If this were not so, there would have been no Pickett’s Charge, no tragedy of the Titanic, no Edsel, no failure of the Space Shuttle’s o-rings, etc. Yet, despite vast supplies of men and equipment, all these things did go wrong. Tragically so.
Why this should be true is not the subject of this post. From among a hundred reasons one could find the causes of these failures, despite every seeming advantage. My concern is simpler: that power neither assures judgment nor enduring success.
People are free to choose, and sometimes they choose poorly, despite every advantage and every assertion of certainty. Choice involves an element of risk, of a plan or scheme, of a planner or schemer, coming undone.
It’s also true in politics, as it is in war, business, and science: not everyone ends as a success. We’ve seen so many heralded as sages, infallible men, but much of this is puffery, and all of it subject to forces greater than press releases and campaign speeches.
Quite a few incumbents are likely to fare poorly next year, in Wisconsin and beyond, and their poor showings will refute the idea that mere power confirmed their wisdom and assured their success.