So You Wanna Be A Councilor
Filed Under: Politics, Guest Post
Every week on Outside Perspectives, we invite a guest to contribute a piece on politics from outside the pundit-sphere. Last week was Forewoman Yaniir and her searing piece on the symbol N'Gir has become for the affiliates looking in.
This week, we're lucky to have Commodore Iorin Grann writing a piece on the pathways our young audience might have to Councilorship. Grann currently serves as the Director of Operations for Starfleet Explorer Corps. Before that, he was the Captain of the Yukikaze, and worked alongside many of the new councilors from Orion during the long struggle with the Syndicate. Some of you might be wondering what insight this Starfleet bureaucrat would have to bring; others of you might have recognized the last name and realized he's the son of the legendary former councilwoman from Ord Grind Duk, Zanet Grann.
First thing's first, since I'm told they're going to mention my Orion service -- congratulations to all the incoming councilors from Orion. I worked alongside many of these newcomers, in particular Councilor Holena, and I expect good things from them all.
(You should remember this Orion reference, by the way, it will come in handy later.)
But you didn't come here to read some Starfleeter give sycophantic laudits to his proverbial bosses' bosses, did you? You came here because you're either a bright-eyed future politician, freshly degree'd and here for practical advice, or you're a political enthusiast and want some inside baseball knowledge to wow your friends with come election season. Or you're here for some other reason, like you misclicked and are now engrossed with this amazing prose. Whatever the case may be, welcome. Let's get with the dispensing of wisdom.
Our goal here is to make you a candidate good enough to win a party nomination contest and eventually, a Council seat. So to do that, we're going to discuss two pillars on which you can build your career in politics. And since this is a publication with a primarily Earth audience -- which gives me
double outside perspective points, I might add -- I'll try to keep my analysis to your political touchstones rather than rambling about the Tellar Free-Associational Model of 182. Luckily, the political development of humanity has long been a personal interest of mine.
There won't be much in the way of practical campaign advice. The process of running a campaign for hundreds of millions, billions in a post-scarcity economy, after the Great Political Awakening, is worthy of its own post entirely. And probably not by me either, unless you bombard the editors with comments saying you enjoy my quick wit and irreverent style, wink wink.
The two pillars we're going to examine are
Work Your Way Through Politics and
Become Famous. It's important to keep in mind that in most cases, these pillars will twist and twine around each other, as we'll discuss at the end. It's also important to know that both of these are broad, but not exhaustive categories, as there are a variety of ways to make it to Council. So don't @ me with your dozens of fiddly exceptions to the rules. As Casey Wang is fond of saying, 'There are two paths, until you make a third.' If you're up to hacking your way through the proverbial political jungle, be my guest.
But I'd keep reading so you know what you're up against!
Pillar One: Work Your Way Through Politics
If you plan to follow this route, you need to be involved in local politics
yesterday. That, or be an incredibly active go-getter starting now. This route is all about making friends in established political movements, getting elected in smaller, more local levels of government to establish a base, and then slowly expanding it as you get elected to broader and broader positions. Today's district chair is tomorrow's United Earth Parliamentarian is next year's Councilor, as the saying I just made up goes. Note that you don't have to do steps sequentially, like ticking boxes off - you don't need to add the titles Chair, City Councilor, Mayor, Member of Sub-State Assembly, Minister, Governor/Premier, Member of State Assembly, Prime Minister/President, Representative of the United Earth Assembly, Secretary, and Secretary General of United Earth to your resume to have a shot for running as a Councilor. If there's an opportunity to jump to one level or another of responsibility, take it as long as you gain visibility and allies. In addition, it can be more advantageous to be a powerful politician at a lower level than a backbencher higher -- consider the influence the African Union President has compared to the average UE Representative.
Next: if you're going to be this ambitious, you need to be good at your job --
really good at your job -- and pulling in excellent vote share. The point is to expand the number of people willing to vote for you, after all. Eventually, on planets like Earth or even Mars, you will need to convince hundreds of millions, billions to vote for you. You've gotta be looking pretty hot at the smaller-scale to appeal to an audience that large.
There's a major hazard to this process, although not the one you might think -- you might decide to get involved at the local level, and never want to leave. There's a real joy in working with neighbours and friends to improve your community, and it's what draws in future politicians. As your electorate gets larger it becomes harder and harder to feel connected to your constituents; their pains and struggles. You might begin to wonder why you'd want to debate the finer details of Feeder Loop Optimization for a few extra tons of duranium efficiency when you could work directly on your constituents' behalf to commission a new park, or deliver new services, or attract new and exciting performance groups to your community.
You may also feel the risk of defeat is too great to move higher, and choose to remain comfortable at your level. After all, a defeat can be psychologically exhausting even in these more happy times. It's a bitter pill to swallow to have others vote against you, no matter what era you're in. And then that comfy seat you vacated may not be able to be taken back, and the entire pillar you climbed seems to vanish with a poof, leaving a void. My advice if that happens is to take up knitting or something, keep busy.
However, you may find defeat less exhausting than victory. Your responsibilities get larger, your days measured out in smaller and more precise increments as you rise up the ladder. You go from being able to take an extra five minutes with your coffee after a committee meeting to finding that time tightly budgeted and regimented, replaced with any number of briefs or meetings. Many burn out, or look at the more daunting responsibilities and decide it is not for them. These are more enlightened times, and rare now are the egotists who crave power for power's sake. You will recognize when you've reached your limit, and it is okay to accept that.
But for the sake of this piece, we're going to assume you'll always want to be councilor. If you fall short of that rung, take heart. You're still doing good work.
The end goal of this is to be relatively popular with a subset of the voting population of the world you want to run on, but just as importantly, popular with the membership of sub-Federal political parties. On smaller colony worlds this doesn't matter as much, but if you're serious about the more developed member worlds, there is simply no way you can brighten the doorstep of a billion plus sentients. It became difficult enough for late-Earth democratic leaders to reach out to hundreds of millions of people, let alone an entire planet. So you'll need help. But first, avoid the obvious trap: the original four member states have strong norms against political parties campaigning directly for one councilor or another, in order to prevent the politics of the member states unduly affecting the politics of the Federation. Voters tend to follow this norm, and will punish any would-be councilor who is seen as too much of an extension of 'politics as usual'.
It's interesting to note that despite fears to the contrary, this norm seems to hold in the newer member states. In the Orion Union council elections (told you it'd come back) CA and TuP campaigned openly for their preferred candidates -- and saw many of them lose. Heavy hitters like Ventil Oyana, Joletta Cam Ye Sonna Bel, and Dawind Byis went down in flames, despite intense campaigning on their behalf by CA. Eliasyn Yathcha had the full backing of TuP and an energetic team hoping to make up for her narrow presidential primary loss, and hers was still a hard-fought, close campaign.
By contrast, third place in the CA Presidential nomination, Maxieme Sierre, sailed relatively easily to a council seat, boosted by her intense popularity on Broken Chains and her dedicated and loyal personal following. Tooph Ye Holena, who never held an elected position, ran a breakneck campaign presenting herself as a fresh, neutral option, free of the petty squabbling that threatened to tear apart the Union, and shocked everyone with her win. Similarly, Canada McLaren shed the branding of Ascension, a party that saw numerous Syndicate defections and a high-ranking member become the self-styled Vice-President of the Celosian Corporate Republic, and instead ran on his immense popularity on Celos, having been one of their elected representatives for decades.
So it is in your best interest to gain the endorsement of
individual, popular legislators and luminaries and have them stump on your behalf. This is an incredibly potent tool, particularly if you can gain the praise of members of opposing political parties. So be nice to them in the cafeteria. Assemble a big enough constellation of popular politicians independently endorsing you, and you'll be set to run an incredible campaign. Remember, of course, to offer some of them prestigious staff positions when you're elected.
In short: climb the ladder, and each step add endorsements, popularity, and visibility.
Pillar 2: Get Famous (And Ideally, Respected)
This is, by necessity, a much shorter section. It begins with you being interested in politics but pursuing a career in something else instead. That might be joining Starfleet, getting ahead in a productivity commission, becoming a particularly notable journalist, or an artistic creator with considerable reach. I'm not going to lay out the details of the process, as all that really matters is this: wherever you end up in your career, you become noted, either through impeccable skill and judgement or just managing to get your face in front of enough holocameras. Even in this more enlightened time, sheer recognition matters, but of course it won't win you a campaign alone. Unless you're literally the return of a major religious or mythological leader, you're going to want to back that notability up with dazzling accomplishments, particularly ones that are relevant to good governance.
The logic behind this is similar to the logic behind the first pillar, only instead of starting right from the grassroots and building your trust up among larger and larger pools of voters and colleagues, you sweep onto the political scene with an impeccable, attention-drawing resume and a fresh celebrity sheen. I would be remiss as a Starfleeter if I failed to mention how attractive this makes former Starfleet officers in some quarters, particularly dashing Captains with headline-grabbing exploits and experienced flag officers with a breadth of experience under their belt and the occasional appearance in the news.
However, I would be
more remiss to not mention their incredible competition in the form of other notable functionaries. Political journalists of all stripes come with political connections, their thoughts collected and in the public eye, and a social media following tailor-made to be turned into dedicated volunteers. Diplomats from the FDS, equipped with deliberate rhetoric, deep understanding of how the Federal government works, and friends with high places. Doctors and lawyers, pushed into the spotlight to make more of a difference. Commissioners and deputy departmental heads of particularly powerful agencies, with their deep experience in civilian government and delivering on the policy that most directly affects people. All of these carry a lustre of accomplishment, and in particular the latter, while not always glamorous, can always fall back on delivering what the people want. By contrast, while Starfleet is popular with Expansionists, they are seen in some quarters as holding a stench of militarism; in others, spineless inaction and meal-mouthed double speak. In short, Starfleet figures can be surprisingly divisive. While their adventures capture the imagination, many Federation voters are concerned with what can be delivered more practically, and those on the civilian side of things have an advantage in this area.
What I'm saying is, don't join Starfleet with the idea you'll get to Rear Admiral, retire, and make an easy win as a councilor somewhere. You've got to stand out, and life accomplishments will only get your foot in the door. And getting your foot in the door is incredibly important -- parties will reach out to particularly notable figures to recruit them ahead of elections, but then you have to survive a nomination competition expect in extraordinary circumstances. And nomination competitions to be formally made a Council candidate are incredibly competitive 99% of the time. You'll often be up against multiple opponents who have dug themselves deep into the political fabric, and will have a head start in organization. But take heart: in these tight-knit competitions, some level of star power can still go a long way.
And so we come to our final point:
Try to be on both pillars at once. There have been historical cases where a career politician went from District Chair up the ladder all the way to Councilor -- oh wait, that's not a historical case, that's literally the life story of Rob Langford. On the flipside, there have been powerful civil servants who made a jump right into Federal politics without ever holding an elected position before -- one is our current President. However, many will be a hybrid of the two. You might lose an election at one level but take up a prestigious posting elsewhere to gain skills and experience, before running for an entirely different level of government a decade down the line. You might be constantly engaged in politics even as you pursue a career independent of them, rushing home from work to get ready for an endless parade of cocktail dinners and policy discussions, as was the path of the late and great Hans Carmichael. Some professions, particularly Starfleet, require you to be more circumspect about your political affiliations, but you can always find time to cultivate friendships with more partisan allies.
You can also ascend to the rarefied heights of one pillar -- by say, being appointed to lead a flagship institution of the Federation -- and then mismanage the trust given to you until you threaten to collapse the entire organization, and all the people who believe in and work for it, under the weight of your own hubris. My advice to you in this case is to gracefully fade from public life. But if you're an egomaniacal piece of scum, what you could do instead is dab your eyes on camera and then try to climb the other pillar entirely. No doubt this is a misguided attempt to inflate your crushed ego and salvage the tatters of your pride and public image through the glorious path of an intense popularity contest, turning our entire democracy into a carnival where your revenge on the institution that rightly fired you is the main attraction. You'd have to be a certain kind of narcissistic tool to do that, though.
Sorry, here was I? Right, getting elected. So if you follow this advice, making sure to be flexible for real world developments rather than treating this as an 'I Win' manual, you will have a head start on your confused collegues with vague aspirations and ideas of how to advance. Most importantly, just get out there and start the work. And with that--
Wait, I want to run on an Apiata world.
--No you don't.
Yes I Do. Please help me understand how to do so.
Let's be clear, if you're reading this, and you're an Apiata, there is likely nothing I can tell you that you don't already know. Generally as a worker or a drone, you know who to vote for, and this is the highest political aspiration you have. As a queen, you're either whipping the votes of your hive on orders from a higher hive, or you've been studying the political relations and aspects of various hives your entire life and are marshalling your sisters and daughters in a great campaign. There is no wisdom I can offer you that hundreds of mothers, aunts, and cousins have not already. In some ways, you're enviable, because you'll learn at a young age where exactly in the hierarchy you will end up; unlike some in our society who are perpetually dissatisfied with how their goals remain maddeningly out of reach.
However, for the rest of the member species, I understand that the Apiata system can seem quite daunting. The reason for this is primarily because it's a throwback. I said I wasn't going to discuss campaigning, but I'm going to sneak it in here. Most campaigns are based on intense grassroots organizing, identifying voting demographics and attempting to sway them with targeted messaging, and constructing an energetic and motivated field team to extol your value in person.
Apiata have no conception of this. Or at least, they don't yet. The Mercantilists are allegedly experimenting with an Ozzira candidate in the next election, and I wish them luck. But for the most part, the Apiata prefer old-style brokerage politics, where aspiring politicians approach a succession of community leaders who promise them their community will support them with a certain number of voters. Flatter enough of these leaders, and you secure the voters, no doorstep visits required. On Earth and most other planets, this style of electioneering fell out of practice in the 21st century, and has remained dead since. But Queens have bases of intensely loyal workers, giving them tremendous blocs of voting power they can then bargain with in dizzying political horse-trading, some of which is driven by long-standing loyalties to other hives. A dedicated Hawk-seeming hive of warriors and comb staves might vote overwhelmingly Pacifist if the High Queen of a hive they are pledged to protect says to vote that way. I'm sure in a few years we'll get a grasp of it, but for now understanding it is like handing a modern person some leather and an awl and asking them to make you some breeches -- just too backwards to make any sense without specialized training.
Anyways, I'm already past my word limit, so thanks again for reading, and good luck! A life in public service is frustrating, rewarding, maddening, and fulfilling. You'll sometimes feel simultaneously naked in the public eye and also impossibly far from their understanding. It is not a calling for everyone. But if you see that previous sentence and aren't the least bit discouraged, take up the challenge. We will always need leaders, no matter how big or small.
--
Your Pal, Iorin Grann
This is an opinion piece. The ideas expressed here are not endorsed by this publication, nor are they endorsed by the author's employer. For more on our Opinion policy and our complaint process, click here.
