The Malcolm Turnbull Guide To A Pyrrhic Victory
By Joseph Earp
For years, politicians have desperately tried to master the fine art of the pyrrhic victory. After all, shooting yourself in the foot while simultaneously crying success is a tricky business, one that requires a complete mismanagement of a range of factors. To that end, we have compiled a ‘how to’ guide: Australia’s first blow-by-blow guide to winning without really winning. Enjoy!
- Piss Off Your Own Party
Only a truly successful leader would find themselves beloved by their own party. The key to a victory that is all but a defeat lies in keeping your enemies close, and your mortal enemies even closer. Shit on the centrist core of your own party, and the dribble down effect of the diarrhoea will then manage to infect even the fringe madmen and women. Nothin’ beats having no real support from the people whose sole purpose is to support you!
- Treat The Australian Public With A Complete Lack Of Respect
Sure, annoying your mates is easy, but how is one meant to go about pissing off the entirety of Australia? Though for years political analysts assumed that it was impossible to annoy the left, the right, the moderates and the politically disengaged all at once, Malcolm Turnbull has raised the levels of ‘Strayan irritation to previously unfathomable heights.
The key to such mass frustration has proven to be a combination of condescension and careerism known as the Turnbull Two-Part Punch. Make sure that you treat Australians like a bunch of drooling children that have been fed a steady diet of straight laxatives whilst simultaneously making sure everybody knows how desperately you want to lead a nation of aforementioned pants-shitters. That way you’ll come across as both creepy and endlessly out-of-touch, a perfect combination if ever there was one.
- Stand For Nothing
This is the real key to a pyrrhic victory. Make sure that your Prime Ministership becomes characterised by a Faustian pact so lacking in morals that even the Devil had second thoughts before shaking your hand. This way, when you do win, it will be a personal victory for you and those gaping holes where your values once sat, given you will have stripped yourself free of any sense of morals the snake sheds its skin. Remember, you’re a politician, not a real person: nobody is meant to know what you are thinking on any given matter.
- Lie
Many assume that the key to non-victories is lying to the public. This is, after all, the tact adopted by so many of the world’s abject failures. And yet, merely lying to an entire nation often leaves one with more success than they may potentially be aiming for. In order to really publically commit career suicide, any leader must be willing to lie to themselves.
Trick yourself into thinking you have the good of the nation in mind. Trick yourself into thinking you are popular, and well liked, and that your political future is safe – that you won’t be knifed in the back as you knifed others in the back. Trick yourself into thinking that you have accepted small evils in order to divert the path of a greater evil, and then, when you’ve done that, ignore all signs that point to you becoming more of a demon than the demon you slew. Trick yourself into thinking a plebiscite is democratic rather than deeply bigoted and unjust. Trick yourself into thinking that you can save the Great Barrier Reef by throwing money at it, rather than taking real action.
And then, when you finally manage to form a government – a government of mewling, libellous thieves and bastards, none of whom trust or like you – trick yourself into believing that your moral and political defeat is some kind of ‘victory’.
And that, friends, is the key to winning without ever really winning at all. Read it and weep.