Machiavelli and the President

Machiavelli and the President

I have been asked to analyze an individual through the lenses of Machiavelli’s teachings. The obvious choice would be a political figure from history. However, this was quickly determined to be an unacceptable approach for this particular paper. The individual under analysis had to be part of my own life. Lucky for me, I happen to be related to a controversial political figure. My cousin Tim was nominated for student class president at his high school and from the beginning of his campaign he acted in ways relatable to the teachings of Machiavelli.

High school has an extremely competitive environment. From athletics, to choral/instrumental groups, to academics, students exist in an environment where achieving success can be the result of the slimmest of competitive advantages; this was no different for Tim in his pursuits of student body president. Apparently eating a bag of Salsa Verde Doritos and washing it down with a 20oz Wild Cherry Pepsi for lunch every day has been linked to causing diabetes among the youth of America. As a result, schools in Los Angeles County have been taking increased steps to clean up the kidneys of students by removing “junk food” from schools. Lime Skittles are being replaced with lima beans and Mountain Dew is being replaced with mountain spring water. This created an interesting void in the stomachs of Tim’s high school classmates – a void that he was able to exploit. To gain a competitive advantage in his political race, Tim decided to hand out bags of chips, candy, and cans of soda with a “Vote for Tim” sticker attached to the side of each item. This act was done for two reasons. The first reason is fairly simple; his classmates enjoyed “junk food” and could easily be bribed with it. The second reason Tim chose to use this tactic was because of something he had learned in his “Introduction to Psychology” course. In that class, Tim was forced to read about classic conditioning. The lesson he took...