Have you ever wanted to go into politics? Well, I have good news for you. Anyone can be a politician because we’re all born with the innate skills to succeed in the field. The evidence for this is in our toddlers. We were all toddlers once and all toddlers are born with a similar skill set to politicians. Allow me to break it down:
1. Toddlers will lie to your face
They’ll be eating the chocolate while telling you they’re not eating the chocolate. Huge rings of sticky brown sugary goodness around their mouths, even as they shake their heads. Chocolate? No. They can be standing on the floor, looking you straight in the eye, broken shards of porcelain around their feet, swearing black and blue they didn’t break a plate. Of course, it wasn’t them, they’ll scream, pleading ignorance. They’ll even place the blame on someone else, usually a sibling or a pet. They’ll look at the sky and swear it is green, even as they point at the varying shades of blue.
2. Toddlers go back on their promises
Catch them in a lie? They’ll swear they’ll never lie ever again ever for the rest of their life. Spoiler: they will. Find them sticking their finger in a powerpoint? Explain to them the serious danger that awaits. They’ll swear to never do it again. Spoiler: they will. Agree to get them a slushie if they make that night’s bedtime routine that night nice and easy, no whinging, no crying. They promise, they swear, that bedtime will be easy as pie. Spoiler: it won’t be. In fact, it will be pointedly worse, because of the aforementioned slushie consumption.
3. They change allegiances at the drop of a hat
Like all of the world’s greatest predators, they can sense weakness and they seize upon it to achieve their ambitions. They can sniff out the winning team and won’t hesitate to align themselves with the frontrunner. If one parent is more likely to buckle and cave in to pizza for dinner, they’re going to be right there, offering cuddles and kisses to seal the deal. If one parent is so tired they’re not likely to put up a fight but instead dole out candy to shut everyone up, they’ll amp up the volume to a frequency only dogs can hear. Factional boundaries are no barrier to anyone here.
4. Toddlers will sit in a mess of their own making and then cry and want you to feel sorry for them
Tell them repeatedly not to run with their milkshake. They ignore you and run. When they trip and cause the inevitable milkshake spillage, they will expect you to tell them it’s all going to be OK and perhaps even buy them a new one. Even though you repeatedly told them that running with the milkshake was an exceedingly bad idea.
5. Toddlers are hypocrites
One day they’ll be telling you off for swearing. The next minute they’ll be swearing like a pirate. When you’re eating an ice-cream they’ll tell you sharing is caring so they can have a slurp. But when you want them to share anything with their sibling the answer is no. Sharing is not caring. Sharing is coercion. If they think they have caught you in a lie, even if it relates to an undertaking you never actually made, they will scream bloody murder. But then … take a reread of point No 1.
6. Catch those little dictators in a lie and try to pin them down
I dare you. What you’ll get is a form of utter magic; an explanation will ensue that is so long, so rambling, so many twists and turns, so many clarifications and corrections, by the time it reaches its painful end, you will have already moved on, because really, who has time for that? The original issue is long forgotten … until the next time.
Of course there are politicians who don’t display the behaviours outlined here. But how many politicians you know without at least some of these skills?
This raises the question, are the rest of the politicians toddlers who never grew up? In the words of John F Kennedy: “You know nothing for sure … except the fact that you know nothing for sure.”
