Can an ordinary person become president?
There’s a story that says if you have a city full of rats and you take a small group of them, locking them in a small space without any food, after a few days, only one rat will remain. This will be the strongest rat, the one that survived by feeding on the others. If you repeat this process, you’ll always end up with the same result: one surviving rat in each group. If you release these rats, after a few days, you’ll find only one rat left in the entire city.
What happened here is that the rats that learned to eat each other became so fierce that they couldn’t be stopped. Once released, they immediately started feeding on the other rats.
You can replace the room where the rats were kept with any government institution. In such places, government employees fight like rats until, in the end, one rat with influence, wealth, and power emerges victorious over the others, over the other employees.
Now, imagine when this rat, who learned to feed on its own kind, reaches a position of leadership. How will it treat those with less power? How will it treat ordinary citizens?
Do you really think that someone who grew up surrounded by problems that are mere dreams to the poor will deeply understand the issues that plague the poor and middle class?
Being a leader is tough. It’s dangerous and demands a lot of strength and effort because you are competing with many powerful and wealthy individuals like yourself, or even more powerful, who want the same position. This makes them disregard other issues, societal problems. This is confirmed by a scientific study conducted by PMC.
These findings provide preliminary evidence that the experience of social ascent may lead people to downplay the difficulty of achieving such an ascent, making them less empathetic toward those who are currently struggling. In other words, those who have fought a political or financial battle may not understand the struggles of those who couldn’t even enter the fight.
This issue goes beyond mere competition for a position; it is a deeply rooted struggle for survival and influence. In this context, the position becomes not just a title or a role but the ultimate goal that everyone strives to achieve. The position becomes the highest objective, justifying any means, no matter how unethical or harsh.
Every action taken by the candidates becomes part of their strategy to stay in power, where any sense of social responsibility disappears entirely. Human values like justice and equality turn into mere slogans that mean nothing in the heat of the struggle. Priorities shrink to focus on one goal: staying in power and enhancing personal influence.
In this environment, the impact of decisions on society or the suffering of individuals doesn’t matter. What matters most is the ability to maintain the position and use it to enhance personal power and wealth. Thinking about the well-being of others becomes a luxury that has no place in the midst of this ruthless struggle.
This type of leadership, rooted in the principle of “survival of the fittest,” creates a deep divide between the leadership and the people. When a leader is a product of an environment that fosters hostility and conflict, it becomes unlikely that they will have the capacity to empathize with the suffering of ordinary people or recognize the importance of meeting their basic needs. The gap widens, and social problems worsen because the leadership is preoccupied with its own battles to retain power, rather than solving the issues facing society.
A system that produces such leaders is not only failing to solve society’s problems, but it also becomes a factory for creating those very problems. This system generates a vicious cycle of violence and aggression, where the victor is the one who excels at playing by the rules of the jungle, not the one who possesses a true vision for social progress.
This aggression isn’t limited to the parties themselves but also extends to their supporters. I don’t need to tell you about the deep animosity between Democrats and Republicans, even though they are from the same country, perhaps even the same family. The only difference between them is that the other holds a different opinion.
So, All it takes is placing an ordinary person in a highly competitive environment, and they will change to adapt, eventually becoming the most ruthless creature in the room. We were born with a dark side that can overshadow our good side when placed in certain situations.
There are many experiments that confirm this, the most famous being the Stanford Prison Experiment. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a study conducted by researcher Philip Zimbardo, where he took a group of volunteer students and divided them into two groups: one playing the role of prisoners, and the other acting as guards with absolute authority.
After just a few days, the behavior of the guards began to change. They started treating the prisoners with increasing cruelty, which escalated into unimaginable sadistic brutality, despite knowing that the prisoners were merely their university friends and that it was just an experiment.
This experiment highlighted the power of institutions to alter human behavior, showing how easily ordinary people can turn into merciless oppressors when given authority over others.
Less than a decade ago, the Milgram obedience study demonstrated that ordinary people, when encouraged by someone in a position of authority, were willing to go to extreme lengths of inflicting pain and harm on others, believing they were doing the right thing.
This included administering electric shocks to their peers at painful and potentially lethal levels. Yes, lethal. That’s how brutal a person can become when given a reason to commit a crime, whether it’s an order from a higher authority or protection from an institution with certain power.
Today, more than forty-five years after these experiments, we are witnessing painful scenes of police brutality in our countries, where authority is exercised in ways that reflect the deepest fears revealed by these studies. The prevalent violence in some of the world’s harshest prisons mirrors the same primal drives that lie within us all. These modern examples underscore a harsh truth: a little push in the right direction can turn us all into tyrants, showing that the capacity for arbitrary power can lie dormant within us, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
When you possess enough power — whether through wealth, political authority, or other means — you can endure some level of hatred, as long as there are a few other powerful individuals who support or tolerate you for their own purposes. At this stage, power begins to reinforce itself. Maintaining power becomes the primary goal, rather than being liked or loved by everyone.
Corruption begins when one exceeds the limits of acceptable behavior in society, such as manipulating or exploiting others without facing consequences. Eventually, the powerful become disconnected from the original community and form a smaller society of like-minded individuals, normalizing corrupt behavior and perpetuating the cycle.
“Powerful people operate in a completely different psychological space than those without power.”
For this reason, many societies attempt to impose restrictions on the accumulation of power. This includes measures such as limiting political office terms, enforcing antitrust laws, or taxing large fortunes. All these actions aim to prevent the disproportionate accumulation of power and mitigate its negative impact.
Other variables play a significant role in enhancing the power of corrupt individuals and solidifying their authority. One such variable is propaganda and control over the media. When a corrupt person controls the media, they can present themselves positively to the public while eliminating their enemies directly or indirectly. They may buy media support or even influence academia to indoctrinate students with certain ideas, making their positions appear acceptable or even legitimate.
On the other side of this equation, a good person (like you) who refuses to use oppressive or unethical tactics might find themselves in a very tough spot. When they don’t control the media and don’t resort to illegal methods to destroy their opponents, they become vulnerable to severe attacks from competitors. Their opponents may use the media to spread negative propaganda about them, making them appear weak or ineffective to the public.
The biggest challenge is that this good person may struggle to achieve their goals and make the impact they desire due to the negative publicity against them. While corrupt people have the ability to shape public opinion in their favor, the good people are often on the defensive, which requires them to continuously tackle challenges and prove their worth under difficult circumstances.
But let me tell you, dear reader, that this ideal good person we’re talking about doesn’t truly exist in the political world as we imagine. Entering the political arena means diving into a system full of challenges and conflicting interests, where the rules are often unclear, and success may depend on your ability to navigate this complex environment. In such a setting, you either have to be strong enough to face the challenges and defend your principles or risk becoming a victim of the dominant systems and powerful interests in the field.
So, while we hope to see leaders who are both ethical and honest, we must recognize that the world of politics demands more than just good intentions. It requires strategies and the ability to face challenges with intelligence and flexibility while maintaining ethical principles as much as possible. Otherwise, the strict and unpredictable rules of the game might make it very difficult for anyone who clings to noble values to succeed in this tough world.
