A lot of teenagers dream of becoming president; that teen angst thinking they’re right sometimes transcends into one’s adult dream for life. They set up a story through decades of preparation and sacrifice (like moving to the middle of nowhere Michigan, Ohio, or Chicago) to present themselves as some grounded person for the chance of becoming president. Then, a very select few reaches that powerful leadership position of a country. Unfortunately, in that pursuit, they carry some baggage.
Whether the original aspiration was simply for power or to turnaround the misfortune of society, the leader in power is in a struggle to do what they want. Besides the basics of lobbying, leaders have made promises that they must at least pretend to deliver. They have supporters, loyal assistants, who have helped these new leaders gain the power that they now have.
In Dune, Paul’s story of climbing to becoming the Emperor showcases that baggage. He makes promises of a Green Paradise for the desert world. If he were to back out of it in order to save the spice on Dune, he’d lose his followers and thus his legitimacy. In How Dune explains political power, the creator explores this rise of power through the balance of force and legitimacy as viewed from sociologist Max Weber. Paul achieves legitimacy through multiple actions but also coincidences from setups like the Dune religion that was designed for Paul to easily fulfill. In addition to his leadership in the resistance against the Harkonnen, he builds up martial confidence and legitimacy. Once he becomes the Emperor, he maximizes the legitimacy and coercion of his leadership full throttle. The story of Paul Atreides is supposed to be a tragedy and tale of the dangers of a charismatic leader.
It’s foreshadowed by Paul himself that he will lose control of his Jihad. In the movie, Paul is literally in pain as he tries to resist his destiny; once he defeats the Padishah Emperor, he’s disappointed as the destiny moves forward and billions die in his name. Stilgar, the leader of the northern resistance tribes of Dune, feels sorry for Paul’s position without knowing his superpowers; rather, he simply empathizes for Paul who has such burden, prophecy, and loss of humanity. What led to this is the galaxy, full of influential figures with their own agendas (and literal sub-plots in the book), manipulating Paul’s false prophecy. Paul is the central figure, and there are multiple key supporters in his life that seeks a reward, some altruistic, some in self-interest. Paul is being used as the new emperor to conduct tons of different agendas at catastrophic scale.
In CGP Grey’s Rules for Rulers essay, one of the key ideas of keeping power was ensuring you reward your closest supporters, those who either provide legitimacy or ensure you stay in power through force i.e. the military. These supporters have their own agenda, but, as the person in power, if you don’t help your supporters’ agendas in return for their support, you will lose more than just the individual but entire swath of supporters who believed in similar ideas.
Trump’s 2016 election was similar in tactics with Reagan, filling the void with the right populist movement while merging them with the Christian or evangelical movement. Trump made promises of the border wall for the former movement and, unlike Reagan, gave significant political positions to the Christian movement such as Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence. Trump’s baggage was not only navigating how to fix an economy that is being rivaled by China but also fielding the needs of his supporters and lobbiers like the influential Heritage Foundation. All this baggage is what leads to corruption.
No matter what type of political system you live in and what “strong disincentives” there are to preventing corruption, there is always corruption because of the inherent need to satisfy your supporters. Singapore is a great example of a “low corruption” state, ranking one of the best, but is actually completely rife with corruption and is essentially a dictatorship by party. Of course, the other side is China and America where both countries’ politicians need to reward their supporters at different scale. The downfall of many politicians is pursuing the agendas of others to appease them, but what comes out is corruption, wasted money, and wasted time from the most important tasks at hand for the nation.
Being the central figure or just anyone in power, even with good intentions, leaders will be misused by those who have other agendas. We can see U.S. presidents through film, interview, and accelerated white hair/aging are burdened significantly by their job; the Presidency, to me, even though it has immense power, is still just a job. Our leaders have an enumeration of responsibilities that consume so much of their life that they can barely do anything else. It’s like new parents; they look miserable with eye bags. Outside their normal job, they are forced to stay awake throughout the night tending to their baby. Leadership positions are stressful, but there are plenty of support staff to alleviate much of the time needed to think about many issues. From my perspective, the job like a parent’s day job can be completed within reasonable time and isn’t that stressful; in fact, most presidents’ agendas are public and do end at a reasonable time around 6-8p. The stress and the amount of time spent maintaining the power is much more stressful than the job itself.