Coaches, Politicians, News Anchors, Destruction, and Tyranny

 

Because of my kids, I’ve spent a lot of time around basketball coaches over the past 15 years or so.  Their coaches, opposing coaches, head coaches, assistant coaches, recruiting coaches, and so on.  I talk to all of them, ask about their lives, ask them what drew them to coaching, and try to understand how they make decisions.  I’ve learned a lot, as I generally do when I ask questions and then shut the heck up.  I’ve learned that you can learn something from absolutely anybody.

I’ve learned that coaching is a difficult profession.  First of all, teaching anything is hard.  Secondly, coaches make very, very little money.  Only the top few can earn a living at it, all the rest of them need other jobs to support themselves.  Which is difficult, because coaching takes an enormous amount of time – nights, weekends, holidays, and so on.  Lots of travel, which means lots of time away from family.  Plus, the pressure from the school administrators who hired you, the kids you’re trying to coach, and worst of all, their parents.

So why would anyone go into coaching?  Having spent a lot of time with a lot of coaches, I’ve reached the conclusion that there are three types of people who go into coaching:

  1. People who love kids
  2. People who love basketball
  3. People who love themselves, and enjoy seeing themselves on TV

As you might imagine, the best coaches are generally some combination of the first two.  People like that tend to stay local – coach their town’s high school team or something.

Anyone who went into coaching for the last reason is pure poison, capable of destroying kids’ lives, and capable of destroying successful athletic programs.

They tend to leave a path of destruction in their wake, although their narcissism and endless ambition can sometimes lead them to higher and higher levels of coaching, because they want the spotlight.  They want to be on ESPN.  And they’ll do absolutely anything to get there.  They don’t care how many rules they break, or how many kids they hurt.

So the bigger programs tend to attract toxic personalities, not the people who just love kids or love basketball.  I’m generalizing, of course.  There are exceptions.  But big-time coaches are often raging narcissists.

Of course, the big-time programs want to be successful, so they want to hire someone who loves kids and loves basketball.  But you can understand their difficulties in vetting candidates.  The job they’re trying to fill tends to attract toxic personalities.  So they often end up with highly flawed leadership.

And the bigger the program, the more of a problem this is.

I think all that may partially explain the problems that democracies are having all around the world today.

Politics is a difficult profession.  It doesn’t pay much, the hours are horrible, and the pressure can be overwhelming.  Why would anyone go into politics?  I think there are three types of people who go into politics:

  1. People who love their fellow citizens, and are willing to sacrifice to make their lives better
  2. People who love the American political system, and want to participate to improve our country
  3. People who love themselves, and enjoy seeing themselves on TV

Just like in coaching, I think the first two groups often go into local politics.  They think their town’s schools could be better, so they run for school board.  Or whatever.

But national politics tends to attract the third group, just like the big-time basketball programs do.  Which means that our federal government tends to end up with highly flawed leadership.

There is another problem with this system.

Conservatives tend to value personal liberty and restrained government.  Very, very few of those people will develop an interest in national politics.  So Republicans who actually seek national office tend to be toxic personalities like John McCain, moderate progressive narcissists like Mitt Romney, or PoliSci geeks like Mike Pence.  Typical conservatives, who value restrained government, those people generally have no interest in seeking national office.  So we get Mitt Romney.

And those restrained-government conservatives have no interest whatsoever in the boring, nuts-‘n’-bolts parts of our administrative state, like election commissions and EPA administrators.

And then, as all these factors make our government more and more powerful, it attracts more and more flawed leadership, and thus further repels conservatives who prefer restrained government.

Another arena that suffers from these problems, of course, is the news media.  Local TV news anchors make no money.  The only possible reason to go into that is that they enjoy seeing themselves on TV, and they like the notoriety in their little town.  The most narcissistic and the most reliably left-wing of those people are then promoted to national programs like ABC News or “60 Minutes” or whatever.

And those are the people who are informing us about our government.

And then we pretend to be surprised about the left-wing slant of our news.

And as our left-wing news media elevates our highly flawed left-wing leaders to God-like status, that then attracts even more narcissistic and even more left-wing people to pursue careers in our federal government.

It gets worse and worse.  It has to.  There is no other way.

I appreciate the efforts of our Republican leadership to attempt to control our descent into leftist chaos and violence, but I think the structural problems facing them are simply impossible to overcome.  God bless them.  But good luck.

Again, some conservatives are drawn to local offices like school boards and county commissions.  Our local governments sometimes work reasonably well.

Our founders anticipated this, and thus tried to keep as much decision-making as local as possible.  And that worked reasonably well, for a long time.

But now that our federal government is taking over more and more power, self-governance at the local level is becoming less influential.  So the last bastion of conservative government is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Similar things are happening in various European countries.  It’s not just America.

I’m starting to think that large groups of people are inherently dangerous.  Small groups, like a town of 2,000 people somewhere, groups like that can get along and work out problems to everyone’s benefit with some regularity.

But large groups – major cities, populous states, countries – large groups seem to inevitably slide into leftism and tyranny.  It has always been thus, as a dead Roman from 1,000 years ago could tell you.  Although our more advanced communications and more prominent media operating over the internet around the world – that has made the process accelerate exponentially, as one might expect.

But regardless of the speed, the bigger the group of people, the more they attract highly flawed leadership, and the more they tend to slide into leftism, chaos, violence, and tyranny, leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

I didn’t understand why until a bunch of basketball coaches explained it to me.

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  1. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Great analogy Doc. 

    • #1
  2. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Very good post, Doc.

    Dr. Bastiat: And then, as all these factors make our government more and more powerful, it attracts more and more flawed leadership, and thus further repels conservatives who prefer restrained government.

    Whether people are on the left, right, or center, we could have more people living under laws they like or at least find tolerable if power and authority were sent back down to the states, where it should have stayed.  Let San Francisco be San Francisco and let Bugtussle be Bugtussle.  Making more laws the purview of the federal government means more people dissatisfied with the laws they live under.

    • #2
  3. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    Very interesting post. As @navyjag said, great analogy.

    Dr. Bastiat: Politics is a difficult profession.  It doesn’t pay much, the hours are horrible, and the pressure can be overwhelming. 

    Perhaps on the local and maybe state level, but there sure are a lot of multimillionaires at the Federal level.

    Your post reminds me of a story. I worked for ExxonMobil for 33-1/2 years, as a geologist in drilling operations. When working in Nigeria years ago, I hired a local man to work as a wellsite geologist. He was from a very prominent family in his local town and worked his way up to a top managerial position at our Houston headquarters. But he got tired of the corporate world and the increasing BS that crept in over the years. Toward the end of my career, when I was working in Qatar he called me and said he was getting out of the oil business and moving back to Nigeria to get into politics “where the real money is”. I think that is the only reason people get into national politics now. There is a lot of money floating around from lobbyists.

    For example, listen to this clown. He can’t possibly believe this can he? He’s got to be a paid shill for some green lobby.

    • #3
  4. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    Dr. Bastiat: But large groups – major cities, populous states, countries – large groups seem to inevitably slide into leftism and tyranny.  It has always been thus, as a dead Roman from 1,000 years ago could tell you. 

    For about a week now, the thought keeps coming to mind that republics are not sustainable. 

    • #4
  5. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Dr. Bastiat: Politics is a difficult profession.  It doesn’t pay much, the hours are horrible, and the pressure can be overwhelming.  Why would anyone go into politics?  I think there are three types of people who go into politics:
    1)          People who love their fellow citizens, and are willing to sacrifice to make their lives better
    2)          People who love the American political system, and want to participate to improve our country
    3)          People who love themselves, and enjoy seeing themselves on TV

    I’ve had to use this quote in several threads recently.  Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (emphasis added)

     

    The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

    To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

    To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

    To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

     

    • #5
  6. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: Politics is a difficult profession. It doesn’t pay much, the hours are horrible, and the pressure can be overwhelming. Why would anyone go into politics? I think there are three types of people who go into politics:
    1) People who love their fellow citizens, and are willing to sacrifice to make their lives better
    2) People who love the American political system, and want to participate to improve our country
    3) People who love themselves, and enjoy seeing themselves on TV

    I’ve had to use this quote in several threads recently. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (emphasis added)

    The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

    To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

    To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

    To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

     

    I wrote something similar in a previous post:

    Anyone who considers running for President should be immediately disqualified. 

    • #6
  7. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    There may be a few more motivations in there. Politics is power, and power attracts money.

    • #7
  8. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    Very interesting post. As @ navyjag said, great analogy.

    Dr. Bastiat: Politics is a difficult profession. It doesn’t pay much, the hours are horrible, and the pressure can be overwhelming.

    Perhaps on the local and maybe state level, but there sure are a lot of multimillionaires at the Federal level.

    Your post reminds me of a story. I worked for ExxonMobil for 33-1/2 years, as a geologist in drilling operations. When working in Nigeria years ago, I hired a local man to work as a wellsite geologist. He was from a very prominent family in his local town and worked his way up to a top managerial position at our Houston headquarters. But he got tired of the corporate world and the increasing BS that crept in over the years. Toward the end of my career, when I was working in Qatar he called me and said he was getting out of the oil business and moving back to Nigeria to get into politics “where the real money is”. I think that is the only reason people get into national politics now. There is a lot of money floating around from lobbyists.

    For example, listen to this clown. He can’t possibly believe this can he? He’s got to be a paid shill for some green lobby.

    You have to look at the districts that elected them.  Stupid people elect stupid representatives.  During my time in Atlanta (close to 30 years), I saw quite a bit of this; Cynthia McKinney succeeded by Hank “is Guam sinking” Johnson, etc. I suspect the same thing is true from such luminaries as Maxine Waters, Shelia Jackson Lee, and, yes, the above-mentioned Jamaal Bowman.

    In Bowman’s case he has a BA in Sports Management, his MA in Counseling and his Doctorate in Educational Leadership.  Perhaps he has spun up his knowledge of economics and budgets but I still wonder about anything he has to say about the Debt Deal.

    Unfortunately, the votes of the above dullards count the same as those who know what they’re talking about.

    • #8
  9. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    Kim Mulkey is the poster child for a narcissistic, amoral jerk coach.

    • #9
  10. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Dr. Bastiat:

    I’m starting to think that large groups of people are inherently dangerous.  Small groups, like a town of 2,000 people somewhere, groups like that can get along and work out problems to everyone’s benefit with some regularity.

    But large groups – major cities, populous states, countries – large groups seem to inevitably slide into leftism and tyranny.

    What is it, about the Right’s political philosophy, that makes it ineffective in large groups? 

    Can the Right govern large groups, or is it only every able to govern small groups?

    Does that mean that large groups, like countries, inevitably have to choose between ineffective government (think Lebanon) or Leftist government of some stripe (ranging from China to the US)?

    • #10
  11. Some Call Me ...Tim Coolidge
    Some Call Me ...Tim
    @SomeCallMeTim

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Kim Mulkey is the poster child for a narcissistic, amoral jerk coach.

    They like her a lot around here (southeast Louisiana). 

    • #11
  12. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    Some Call Me …Tim (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Kim Mulkey is the poster child for a narcissistic, amoral jerk coach.

    They like her a lot around here (southeast Louisiana).

    Nobody else does.

    • #12
  13. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Since we’re talking about coaching…my nephew:

     

    https://uwbadgers.com/sports/football/roster/staff/john-richter/467

     

    • #13
  14. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    my dad was a life long coach of baseball and football. He both loved the sports and loved teaching kids. It kept him young (he was coaching and pitching BP until his early 80s)

     

    • #14
  15. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    For coaches, reasons 1 and 2 are only incidental.  Anyone at a high level hiring a coach for those reasons will end up with Gerry Faust.  

    There is no reason 1 or 2 for politicians.  They are all, without exception, primarily seeking power over others.  

    Limiting their power is the only safeguard to keep us from oppression.  It is the expansion of the government’s reach that has brought us to the polarized condition we are in now.  To lose on any issue is to lose on every issue.  The only possible cure is to severely restrict the reach of their power again, and only the governors are capable of doing that.  Well, maybe the courts can.  The recent Supreme Court lends some hope to eventually reawakening the 9th and 10th amendments, but probably they won’t, and if they did they would likely be ignored.

    • #15
  16. Some Call Me ...Tim Coolidge
    Some Call Me ...Tim
    @SomeCallMeTim

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Some Call Me …Tim (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Kim Mulkey is the poster child for a narcissistic, amoral jerk coach.

    They like her a lot around here (southeast Louisiana).

    Nobody else does.

    Why is that?  I don’t follow basketball aside from reading the headlines in the local fish wrap. 

    • #16
  17. John H. Member
    John H.
    @JohnH

    I’m trying to square these ideas with the European democracy that calls itself Slovenia. If the worst motivation a Slovene politician can have is to get his face on Slovene TV, that limits his mischief, I think. I suppose he might aspire to be sent to the European Parliament or whatever it’s called. That does have prestige, down ex-Yugoslavia way. Still, it’s a pretty small arena.

    But maybe you can get rich in Brussels, or wherever large checks denominated in Euros get cut. I’m pretty sure you can’t get very famous in such a pseudo-cosmopolitan town. Whether any Slovene statesman has taken this route, I cannot say offhand – the wealthiest and/or most famous Slovenes I can think of are Melania Trump and Luka Dončić, neither an occupant of or aspirant to high office. I am going to guess, based on Slovenia’s very limited example, that if life dangles before you an unwholesome prize, it’s power, more than money or celebrity.

    (And if we consider, however reluctantly, Slavoj Žižek, then influence alone, or mere notoriety, rather than frankly wielded political force, appears good enough. If this is the most hazardous thing a guy can hunger for, or inflict on anyone around him, Slovenia must be considered a model democracy.)

    • #17
  18. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    John H. (View Comment):
    If the worst motivation a Slovene politician can have is to get his face on Slovene TV, that limits his mischief, I think.

    My point exactly. 

    • #18
  19. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    They don’t need to go to Brussels to be corrupt or violent, they can do all that at home in Ljubljana.

    (Did you know that Zizek has been interviewed by Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nevrasova ? I couldn’t  finish the podcast – I lack the philosophy chops I guess – but that’s where I heard of him.)

    • #19
  20. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Dr. Bastiat: Again, some conservatives are drawn to local offices like school boards and county commissions.  Our local governments sometimes work reasonably well.

    Even there, it can be enough to drive a conservative with a more balanced attitude in life – not obsessed with politics – to distraction.

    You still have to sit in the same room with people who want to micromanage everything, and are willing to keep that meeting going until 3 am to get what they want.  The conservative wants to go home to his wife and kids, while the local government obsessed schlub will drone on and on of things of little consequence.  It’s a war of endurance and attrition.

    And small local governments have their own innate corruption.  The stereotype of the corrupt local sheriff running speed traps on out of towners has a lot of truth to it.  But then, what restrains people like that is they live amongst the neighbors they’re policing and they may have kids that are going to school with those neighbors.

    I don’t know, where I’ve heard this before, but the saying that the left is good at government while the right is good at governing resonates with me.

    • #20
  21. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    There is one big flaw with this analogy. Good coaches can’t convince people that they are great if the team stinks. If a coach isn’t bringing in wins, it hurts him alot. There is still a large degree of meritocracy in sports to mitigate that narcissists still have to grapple with. Politicians can do everything badly but fool people into voting for them. 

    That is why Republics should demand taking a basic test of civics before letting people vote.

    • #21
  22. Macho Grande' Coolidge
    Macho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Spot-on, Doc.  I’ve been saying something similar but much less effectively than you did, for years.  At the local level, the destructive impacts are small and mitigated by the size of the groups, direct feedback, face to face, with political leaders.  It tends to rein in the stupid.

    At the national level, those positions only really attract those who shouldn’t be in those positions of power – generally, the conservative just wants to be left alone to live a life unencumbered by politics and its impacts.  For others, who for whatever flaws seek out that power, how can that outcome be anything but destructive?  The motives, the outcomes, are all geared to satisfy the narcissist or the person who wants to control others.

    That has zero to do with liberty.  The evidence of the long-running catastrophe is presented to us, annually, in the smaller details of the US Federal Budget.

    • #22
  23. Macho Grande' Coolidge
    Macho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Some Call Me …Tim (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Some Call Me …Tim (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Kim Mulkey is the poster child for a narcissistic, amoral jerk coach.

    They like her a lot around here (southeast Louisiana).

    Nobody else does.

    Why is that? I don’t follow basketball aside from reading the headlines in the local fish wrap.

     

    I’m assuming it’s related to clothing.

    • #23
  24. John H. Member
    John H.
    @JohnH

    Zafar (View Comment):

    They don’t need to go to Brussels to be corrupt or violent, they can do all that at home in Ljubljana.

    Corrupt, maybe. But violent? Ljubljana has always seemed sedate to me. I do however confess that my sensibilities are dull. Only by reading newspapers did I get an idea how much gunfire there is in San Salvador. I sure didn’t hear any.

    Did you know that Zizek has been interviewed by Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nevrasova ? 

    Man, I’m “lucky” to have even heard of 33% of these people. Now I am trying to recall how the great philosopher ever came to my attention. I’m pretty sure it was in a Slovene news website. Which, if true, is strange: I hadn’t otherwise got the idea folks thereabouts pay much attention to their farflung compatriots. I think I once reported on Ricochet a rare sighting, within Slovene media, of Melania Trump. It was trifling. If you wondered if Slovene Twitter exists, wonder no more.

    • #24
  25. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: Politics is a difficult profession. It doesn’t pay much, the hours are horrible, and the pressure can be overwhelming. Why would anyone go into politics? I think there are three types of people who go into politics:
    1) People who love their fellow citizens, and are willing to sacrifice to make their lives better
    2) People who love the American political system, and want to participate to improve our country
    3) People who love themselves, and enjoy seeing themselves on TV

    I’ve had to use this quote in several threads recently. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (emphasis added)

    The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

    To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

    To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

    To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

     

    I wrote something similar in a previous post:

    Anyone who considers running for President should be immediately disqualified.

    That was part of an amendment in a science fiction story set in 2276. America was still around, celebrating its 500th anniversary. The presidency had gone to a lottery system, drawn from a pool of eligible citizens. If one showed any desire to be president, his name was pulled out of the drawing.

    Maybe it could become a variant of the old “1st place is one week in [blank town], 2nd place is two weeks in [blank town]” joke. First place is Vice President, second place is President.

    • #25
  26. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Can the Right govern large groups, or is it only every able to govern small groups?

    Govern?   What do you mean by “govern?”

     

    • #26
  27. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Dr. Bastiat:

    But now that our federal government is taking over more and more power, self-governance at the local level is becoming less influential.  So the last bastion of conservative government is rapidly becoming obsolete.

    Similar things are happening in various European countries.  It’s not just America.

    That reminded me of a great video by Maxim Katz that I wanted to post about but which I apparently haven’t even finished watching.

    It’s about the centralization of power in Russia, and the recent (apparent) decentralization in which the center apparently wants to let the border oblasts handle their own military defense and foreign policy. 

    Katz points out that despite what most people (including myself) thought, Russia didn’t lose its federalism in 2004 when Putin took away the election of oblast governors.  It instead took place a couple of years earlier, when a “budget reform” act took away the power of oblast governors to control their own budgets.  

    Now, does that have any relevance to the phenemonon you describe?  There is a faint parallel in which the oblast governorships because relatively unimportant, and the only career path upward was to be invited to be the minister of some department in Moscow. 

    • #27
  28. Keith Lowery Coolidge
    Keith Lowery
    @keithlowery

    From the time our first kid started sports until the last one finished, we had been sitting in the bleachers for 27 years. My back and my backside don’t miss those bleachers, but the games were great fun.

    My boys, especially, had only two different kinds of coaches.  The first was your coach who loves kids.  The second was a variation on your second one.  But this kind was trying to live vicariously through the kids, reliving some kind of lost glory days or something.  The second kind was toxic. The first kind changed their lives.

    Coaches can make a huge difference in the lives of their charges, if they want to.

    • #28
  29. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    JoelB (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat: But large groups – major cities, populous states, countries – large groups seem to inevitably slide into leftism and tyranny. It has always been thus, as a dead Roman from 1,000 years ago could tell you.

    For about a week now, the thought keeps coming to mind that republics are not sustainable.

    Ours was sustainable until we drifted outside the framework of the Constitution. Maybe it really wasn’t sustainable because of the built in flaws of human nature. Maybe that is why man’s natural state is living under oppression.

    • #29
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