Politics is all about power, money and perception. In that regard, politics and the holidays in our modern society have a lot in common, making this time of year one of the most stressful moments to endure because of so many forced interactions with coworkers and family alike. 

Upset about a holiday party you have to attend? Biting your nails over a mandatory, once-a-year family gathering you can’t opt out of? Racking your brain over how to buy gifts for coworkers you don’t actually like? Have to do a holiday photo shoot with people you hate?

Fear not! In this column, we will “Christmas” like seasoned politicians to give you the survival guide you never knew you needed! 

(Disclaimer: Please don’t actually behave badly, this is for political education purposes only.)

Hearing Only What You Choose To Hear And Repurposing The Statement

The worst part about the holiday season is the fact that there are always some unreasonable, irreconcilable coworkers and family members who say things that annoy you, and while you may be able to evade them for most of the year, you’re forced to see and interact with them at parties during this time. 

Professional politicians are in environments like this 24/7. If they were like the rest of us, they’d probably be morally distressed day and night by shame or cognitive dissonance, but they’re not.

How are they not? Because in politics, rule No. 1 is “no matter what you heard earlier, what I’m telling you right now is the operative statement.”

Turning a negative into a positive (or a positive into a negative) is the spin cycle of politics, and it’s the reason you constantly feel your elected officials aren’t listening to you, because the benchmark is always changing based on what suits them. 

Last week, I watched U.K. Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Cameron react to comments made by Israel’s ambassador Tzipi Hotovely that sharply disagreed with his government’s policy.

His response? “I don’t think we should put too much weight on one interview. We have to get on and think about how to help make this happen.”

In case you need help intellectually un-pretzeling that statement, Cameron essentially heard only what he chose to hear from the Israeli ambassador and repurposed the statement to make it sound not as bad.

Instead of the interview marking a new low for U.K.-Israel relations (which it did), Cameron made it sound like the ambassador was just thinking out loud and went on with his original policy advocacy. This is fine, I guess, so long as the only thing you’re accountable to is the thoughts in your own head.

So, the next time your coworkers or family tell you something that offends you like, “How come you’re still making the same salary, when Jane got two raises?” or “Why is it you can’t be like your brother Bob who’s so successful?” do like the politicians do and deflect the statement. “Jane got two raises, but I have three coming up of my own.” “Bob’s a great success, but we’re working on something right now that will make you very proud in the next few months!” 

And why don’t these people like you? Well, technically they do like you, they just didn’t like you because they were having a bad day when they saw you. Politician up!

Answering Questions With More Questions

Here’s another. When I was at the University of Texas at San Antonio as an undergraduate, we did an experiment which revealed that people asking questions are perceived to be smarter than those answering questions.

Politicians who ask lots of questions of their opponents know precisely what they’re doing. They’re not seeking transparency, accountability, or more understanding. They want to undermine people by making it seem like they’re smarter than them.

This is why when I coach candidates for a debate, I tell them to realize that their own opponent doesn’t actually know the answers to their own questions, they’re just asking them to disrupt your flow.

However, we can take a page from this when gossipy in-laws start asking you questions at a holiday party you don’t want to answer. Just ask them more questions as your answer in return!

Staged Holiday Photo Shoots

Don’t lie, you know that the hardest thing to do is to take a group holiday picture with people who are office tyrants or family gathering disruptors. Worse, there’s often someone who likes to sabotage the photo with some kind of passive-aggressive gesture or expression, making this less of a holiday photo and more of a hostage parade. 

I’m not sure why the universe associates us with these kinds of people in life, but politicians have a knack for taking staged photographs with allies and enemies alike that make every photo look like they’ve just won the lottery.

There’s two ways that you can approach this. The high difficulty/high training-required move is simply to fake the best smile you can, or think of something that makes you happy. 

The pro move that a seasoned politician would make would be instead to insist that they be the one to take the photo. Assuming no professional photographer is involved, if you take the initiative and are the one who takes the group photo, you can exclude yourself from the group shot, take the shot until it looks the way you want it, and funniest of all, you own the rights to the photo, so it can’t be used unless you release it.

And if you weren’t seen on photo, were you really at the event? Makes you think, don’t it?

Surviving Mandatory Family And Office Gifts

GenZs have this hilarious word called “mid” that basically is their equivalent of GenX’s “meh.” It means something is sub-par, mediocre, barely passable, crummy, you get the idea.

I told one of my coworkers last week that I was dreading our office holiday party because we had to bring $20 minimum gifts to the event, “but you know that we’re going to get a regift from the person we’re assigned to, the kind of bad gift that you say, ‘Aww, that’s so sweet!’ in public, but you end up throwing into the trash can when no one is looking because you know you can’t use it.” 

That’s as “mid” as you can get, and it really makes the holidays feel grinchy.

But then it dawned on me that politicians never actually pay for anything themselves. Instead, they get others to pay for things for one purpose, and then turn around and use that money for yet another purpose instead. They are especially in their element when they ask for things they don’t need, but ask because they plan to give it to someone else. 

So, we’re not “giving gifts” this week, we’re going to hit up other people to give gifts for us to other people so we don’t have to. (What do you think most of these political “charity fundraisers” actually are?)

So, convince your cousin to give a gift to your aunty, convince your coworkers to buy a group card for your boss, and so on. As the campaign coordinator, technically speaking you gave the gift because you organized others to give, right?

Lessons Learned From Politics

Andy Williams called the holidays “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Who are we kidding?

I think the CDC should do a social media post proclaiming December as “Narcissistic Abuse Prevention Month” because of how it brings out the worst materialism, selfishness and superficiality out of Americans. But, we do what we must to get through these times.

All joking aside, politics, like the modern holidays, is terrible and the only reason people act this way is because we empower them to do so or tolerate this as a practice. All government and politics is downstream from national culture, so the first place we need to look if we want a better world in 2024 is right in the mirror. 

When we allow bad behavior to go unchecked, when we don’t help others confront abusers, when we remain silent when others are being treated unfairly, we create precedents that become traditions. That is the most important lesson to learn in 2023.

I encourage you this holiday season to be as kind, magnanimous, generous, patient and civil as possible, and failing that, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Happy holidays, and have a very Merry Christmas.