Liars for leaders

All politicians are useless and shameless liars that poor Zambians must not believe to an extent of dying for them in the process. They told us a lot of lies and we voted for them but here we are still suffering,” says chief Chipepo.

The toxic state of our politics is hard to navigate. Our politicians today can be likened to magicians. Magicians are the best liars in the business. Not because they tell the most lies, or the biggest lies, but because they can get away with them even when you are anticipating the lies. We all know magic doesn’t exist.

We all know that magicians are somehow lying to us when they are performing. And yet, the profession of magician has been around for thousands of years. It’s the same with politicians. Our politicians, like magicians, are able to continually deceive us because they dress for the occasion.This may be obvious but it’s still worth mentioning. A person in a suit is generally considered trustworthy and credible. You’ll rarely find an on-stage magician not wearing one.

Yet, not all occasions call for suits. Street magicians are frequently found in ratty t-shirts and jackets. Politicians are also known to dress down for their circumstances. In fact, they take the idea further, adding props and backdrops that endear them to a certain population, generally exhibiting the rolled-up sleeves tough-guy look.

Politicians really love pretending to be farmers. Some magicians understand that magicians are a notoriously dishonest lot, so they try their damnedest to appear as if they are rebel magicians by occasionally criticising normal magicians and revealing their secrets.

In so doing, they evade the connotation of untrustworthiness usually carried by their profession. By revealing the intricacies of the tricks and sharing secrets traditionally only privy to magician’s circles, they separate themselves from the rest of the magical community as the rebels that aren’t liars like everyone else. So, how do politicians use this technique? Candidates for office know that politicians aren’t trusted.

As a way to avoid similar mistrust, candidates go to great lengths to shed the negative connotation and separate themselves from the herd. Everyone knows that magicians use diversions. A burst of confetti or a strange tap of the wand are easily deemed diversions by most observers. However, the best magicians use diversions so natural and comfortable that the audience can’t help but fall for them. In the world of politics, diversions are equally effective. A politician will find a flashy issue, one that engages even the most politically apathetic Zambians, and they will frame it as a serious issue of our time. The diverting banter doesn’t just occur when the magician needs it as a diversion.

It persists through the entire act, beginning even before any magic has started. If you want to catch a magician in a sleight or a politician in a lie, you have to look past the banter or rhetoric into the sometimes boring mechanics of what is actually going on. In the magician’s case, this means watching the hands very carefully. Don’t watch their face or their props. In the politician’s case, looking for the truth means ignoring a person’s rhetoric and instead observing what bills they vote for, author, or sponsor. When you are offered a fanned deck of cards and are told to pick a card, any card, you might not actually have as free a choice as you imagine.

This is because magicians often use a technique known as a pack force.

When they offer you the cards to choose from, they will actually slightly manipulate the cards in order to encourage you to pick from a certain group of maybe 510 cards. The face value of the key card is known by the magician, and 510 cards to the right of it are also known. Usually, the key card is an ace, and the 510 cards right of the ace are of the same suit in ascending order. The magician keeps an eye on this key card and will encourage you to pick one of the cards in that group. Once a card in the pack is selected, the magician can simply count to the key card and they will know the value of the selected card.

The pack force allows a wide range of mind reading effects, but an even more fun array of prediction reveals. Because the magician knows the audience will select one of a certain suit, he can hide notes on his person that read, I predict you will select X card. For example, he might hide a note that reads, I predict you will pick the ace of hearts in his right shoe, while his left shoe predicts the two of hearts, his left pocket predicts the three of hearts, and so on. Of course, the audience will never see the unused predictions, making it appear as though the magician foresaw the future.

So, how do politicians use this technique?

Politicians refuse to give straight answers to debate questions, especially questions that require them to make a specific promise or prediction. When a promise is made, the size of the pack is reduced to one card. The politician has to get lucky and pray that the single predicted outcome happens, otherwise there’s going to be hell to pay. Next time you see a politician worming their way around a conclusive answer, you’ll know why. They don’t want to make predictions, they just pretend they predicted the past.

We are simply told the lies we want to hear. That may sound ridiculous! Who wants to be lied to? The answer is: most people. We can have a whole city dedicated to people pretending to be what they’re not, an entire industry telling us that products it’s selling are things they’re not, and cosmetic companies that allow us to look like people we’re not. We happily welcome these little lies because they make the world a bit nicer to live in. A spoonful of sugar helps the deception go down.

For magicians, this means they must perform effects in which people want to believe. Everyone wants to live in a world where vanishing, conjuring, transfiguring, and teleporting are possible. So, how do politicians tell us the lies we want to hear? You may notice that during election season, candidates are intensely bitter about the country’s current circumstances, and they always paint a bright picture of the future.

Each candidate, no matter his or her party, must denounce the current times in some way, and then promise the audience that there are better times ahead. A candidate must provide hope. Everyone wants to believe in hope.