The Question The Politician Poses, And The Question We Actually Need To Answer

The Politician opens with a question: Does doing the correct thing matter if it’s not done for the correct reason? It’s the question uttered by countless characters in that first episode, plus it follows us while in the complete first season of the latest embodiment of the minds of Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, the trio in back of Glee and Scream Queens.


There’s no formal answer given to that question — and the exploration will presumably continue with more seasons of the show, expertly set up with the Season 1 finale — although if important reaction is any indication, response The answer is a resounding, ‘Yes, it matters!!!!’


Netflix’s first foray into the Murphy canon introduces Payton Hobart (Ben Platt), the ambitious adopted child of especially rich Santa Barbarans — the unloving Keaton (Bob Balaban) and the exceptionally loving Georgina (Gwyneth Paltrow) — who has inherited his father’s ability to genuinely not care about anything and his mother’s disposition to turn on the needed charm in the blink of an eye. This seemingly sociopathic moving by means of the world serves Payton well; he will be President of the United States, and no obstacles, emotions included, will get in his way.


whenever he meet Payton, a student at Saint Sebastian, he’s embarking upon the senior year points of his plan: to get into Harvard (the school that has produced the most former presidents) on his own merits (avoiding a potential smear campaign that alleges his cash is the only reason he gained admittance), and to be president of his student body, allowing him to enact change on the small-scale that he'll later replicate for the full country.


As such, the school election becomes a microcosm for Payton’s future presidential election, and he’s already got a stellar team supporting him on his rise: Campaign Manager James (Theo Germaine), First Lady Alice (Julia Schlaepfer), and Chief of Employees McAfee (Laura Dreyfuss). During the season, we visualize their inter-team relationships expand and contract through aggressive disagreements once they make both typical political moves — painstakingly project election statistics — and strange ones — secretly test a trial of his vice presidential candidate Infinity’s (Zoey Deutch) blood to decide if she’s actually sick or a victim of Munchausen by Proxy (again, group in attempt to avoid a potential smear campaign).


The lingering question at this stage is why so several people blindly believe in Payton, to the point where they would do objectively bad things group in attempt to progress his objective, never having proven himself in back of his pure ambition.


Although this blind following isn’t without precedent. There’s a well known figure who follows Payton’s rise fairly closely: Senator Mitch McConnell, who carries variation the virtue of being simultaneously the most powerful and the least admired person in the Senate.


Like Payton, McConnell’s interest in politics started early. As NPR reported, any time if he ran for his student government, he employed a solid campaign plan of action (getting endorsements from the popular kids). Whenever he ran for public office against a well-liked incumbent, he tirelessly sought to generate dirt on them, then ran them to the ground. He made allies with the union workers, promising to have their back, only to turn on them right after he secured their votes. (The anti-union powers distribute greater campaign contributions than the unions, so he allegedly flipped the moment he might) His career has been led by ambition, and right now, that ambition for his Republican aims is finally paying off: He has a presidential ally in Trump, and while Trump has been doing whichever Trump does, McConnell has been swiftly passing laws that fit with his agenda, and blocking those that don’t.


The only difference is that McConnell is using his ambition to achieve conservative aims, while Payton, overly concerned with the minority students (the Haitian vote!) And taking a strong stance for gun control, uses his for liberal aims. It’s easy to deride McConnell’s heartless behavior while you don’t believe in his goals; it’s far less easy to denounce a candidate’s behavior whenever they’re purchasing out the local gun store and donating the deadly devices to art, so that none of those will just be in the incorrect hands.


So, why not, as a substitute, back a heartful candidate who wants to prepare the change they genuinely feel matters, rather than the heartless one who only vows to do that which will benefit his personalized goal?


Well, in this fictional political world, there doesn’t seem to be a choice. Payton’s opponent, Astrid (Lucy Boynton), is similarly as unfeeling in her attempts to secure the presidency, bringing on board the initial Black queer vice presidential candidate Skye (Rahne Jones) just for the variation and making valiant attempts to discredit Payton’s campaign by leaking a video of Infinity calling a seemingly gay man a “butt munch,” thus evoking a slur. Both sides of the aisle are rabid for power.


There almost was a choice, though. In the initial episode, Payton finds out that River (David Corenswet), his overly feeling, incredibly charming Mandarin tutor and the only person who generally seems to truly believe that Payton can be good, is running against him. River shows the school what it could be like to follow a candidate who cares about the well-being of his classmates, who genuinely wants to listen to them and learn how he can make their lives better.


Seeking this position almost on a whim immediately after a heavy experience made him realize the good he may do for his community in the position, River calls to mind the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar — freshman Congresswomen whose passion to do what they think, hear, and visualize is right for their constituents is undeniable. Neither seemed to enter politics with some greater political objective in mind; Ocasio-Cortez, a former waitress, and Omar, a former nutrition educator, simply saw things they didn’t like happening in their communities and determined they could help make things better.


Like the real-life representatives, River’s popularity as candidate seen a sharp spike while he addressed his constituents as his peers in his first (and only) debate against Payton, physically bringing himself down to their level by coming off the stage and sharing his vulnerabilities. Payton’s only saving grace was, sadly, River’s death; if not for his own self-defeat, River surely would have won election, and all of the political conniving would have been naught.


Once real people who actually care about making their world better enter the political ring, voters can feel that, and so they can pick to follow someone led by ambition, or they can pick to uplift someone with ambition, nevertheless led by passion. So, it seems the question we should be asking isn’t if doing the correct thing matters if it’s not done for the correct reason. The real question is: Do you want it to matter?