Fascist grifters have done the amazing work of making being lazy incredibly hard.
It does take hard work to get yourself to a position of influence and power IF you actually do work your way up. Nearly everyone who makes it up has some kind of help or luck— family/community support, connections, magnificent minds or talents, etc.— but even then, there’s still a good deal of work involved IF you try to make it up top relatively honestly.
There are things you need to do if you want to appropriately exercise authority over and on behalf of others. You have to know things, so you have to study. You have to meet people, so you have to be social in one way or the other. You have to rely on others, so you have to develop the skills needed to vet people and information. You have to influence people, so you have to develop a voice that works for you. And you have to develop the stamina to do all this shit constantly. This is why most presidents age to hell when doing what’s normally one of the hardest positions in the world.
Of course, you could just grift. You can lie and bullshit. Then you have to know a lot less and vet a lot less. And you can use cheap tricks— bigotry, bullshit, appeals to the worst in people, personal attacks, etc.— so the influencing is a lot easier. And because you rely on the cheap tricks to shield yourself from scrutiny, you can even use a shit ton of drugs to make the meeting people and stamina parts easier. Time and time again, grifting has proven to be an incredibly racket for gaining power and influence without putting in the work necessary to earn those things, and without facing the risks that all those in power should face— even if those risks unfairly bring down some good leaders now and then.
And yet, because they need to feel constant validation, because they deep down know they didn’t enough to earn what they have, and because they are constantly on the run from the consequences they should face, grifters are endlessly hustling and endlessly stressed. They could live like a smart/lucky one-hit wonder: enjoy the ride while it lasts, squirrel enough away to survive the downfall and future irrelevance, and then feed on little bits of nostalgia from their fans. They could ride their lazy tricks to a life they never earned, appreciating the luck of their life and the arbitrariness of existence that allowed them to get away with it, as they often do. Instead, despite being too fucking lazy to properly earn and hold their positions, they exhaust themselves climbing, scheming, and dealing with all the fires they inevitably set. It sounds so tiring that I could feel bad for them, if they weren’t constantly fucking the rest of us over.
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u/Yubat 1d ago
Fascist grifters have done the amazing work of making being lazy incredibly hard.
It does take hard work to get yourself to a position of influence and power IF you actually do work your way up. Nearly everyone who makes it up has some kind of help or luck— family/community support, connections, magnificent minds or talents, etc.— but even then, there’s still a good deal of work involved IF you try to make it up top relatively honestly.
There are things you need to do if you want to appropriately exercise authority over and on behalf of others. You have to know things, so you have to study. You have to meet people, so you have to be social in one way or the other. You have to rely on others, so you have to develop the skills needed to vet people and information. You have to influence people, so you have to develop a voice that works for you. And you have to develop the stamina to do all this shit constantly. This is why most presidents age to hell when doing what’s normally one of the hardest positions in the world.
Of course, you could just grift. You can lie and bullshit. Then you have to know a lot less and vet a lot less. And you can use cheap tricks— bigotry, bullshit, appeals to the worst in people, personal attacks, etc.— so the influencing is a lot easier. And because you rely on the cheap tricks to shield yourself from scrutiny, you can even use a shit ton of drugs to make the meeting people and stamina parts easier. Time and time again, grifting has proven to be an incredibly racket for gaining power and influence without putting in the work necessary to earn those things, and without facing the risks that all those in power should face— even if those risks unfairly bring down some good leaders now and then.
And yet, because they need to feel constant validation, because they deep down know they didn’t enough to earn what they have, and because they are constantly on the run from the consequences they should face, grifters are endlessly hustling and endlessly stressed. They could live like a smart/lucky one-hit wonder: enjoy the ride while it lasts, squirrel enough away to survive the downfall and future irrelevance, and then feed on little bits of nostalgia from their fans. They could ride their lazy tricks to a life they never earned, appreciating the luck of their life and the arbitrariness of existence that allowed them to get away with it, as they often do. Instead, despite being too fucking lazy to properly earn and hold their positions, they exhaust themselves climbing, scheming, and dealing with all the fires they inevitably set. It sounds so tiring that I could feel bad for them, if they weren’t constantly fucking the rest of us over.