Seven Deadly Sins, Part 3: Politics
In 1672 Holland, a very angry and very hungry mob were so pissed off with the wealthy political class that they killed, cooked, and ate their Prime Minister.
There are political moments that lodge in your brain whether you want them to or not. Australian senator John Madigan declaring that “submarines are the spaceships of the ocean.” Washington mayor Marion Barry boasting that “outside of the killings, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.” Boris Johnson claiming that voting Tory can “cause your wife to have bigger breasts.”
When politicians go off script, they often show themselves as being frighteningly unequal to their roles. This is why they generally stick to the slogans their advisers drum into their heads and forbid them to deviate from.
Political slogans are mostly meaningless, vague catchphrases that commit to nothing and allow the bozos that utter them to confirm or deny what they meant in saying them.
Listen, remember, repeat, repeat, repeat. No matter the question, give that answer!
The slogans work because they’re memorable little brain-worms that slide past critical thinking. They let Joe Public feel like their chosen leader has everything under control, even when those leaders clearly have no fucking idea what they’re doing, worse, they couldn’t care less what the real issues are. They paper over incompetence, and sometimes they hide motives that are a lot darker.
“Make America Great Again.” It’s deliberately vague. It sounds powerful, but it means nothing unless you anchor it to an actual moment in time.
So when was America “great”? Pick a year, any year, and I aguarantee Ithere’s a good argument against it being a great one!
1860 - Slavery, brutality, human beings treated as property.
1927 - Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation.
1954 - McCarthyism, purges, the government hunting citizens for thought-crimes.
Australia’s no better. “Stop the boats.” “Vote no if you don’t know” (why not, if you don’t know, find out?). Peter Dutton even echoed MAGAs catchline with “LET’S GET AUSTRALIA BACK ON TRACK”, LGABOT? It’s sounds like a knock-off sex robot. Peter was wiped out at the election at least in part by his echoing of Trump’s rhetoric, and in part because he’s fucking terrifying.
Most of these lines are engineered to make you angry at the wrong people. “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.” Be furious at immigrants, poor people, protesters, never the billionaires gouging you, the corporations dodging tax, or the politicians stuffing their own pockets.
Peter Dutton
In 1672 Holland, a very angry and very hungry mob were so pissed off with the wealthy political class they killed, cooked, and ate their Prime Minister.
Johan de Witt had spent years serving the merchant elite like a loyal waiter. Every policy plated up for the rich, every crisis handled in their favour, every sacrifice demanded from everyone but them. While ordinary people starved, froze, and paid the price for decisions they never benefited from, de Witt kept feeding the top of town like they were the only citizens that mattered.
Eventually the public snapped. And when they did, the man who’d spent his career handing the wealthy everything on a plate ended up on one himself. After killing de Witt and his brother Cornelis, they were stripped naked, mutilated, and hung upside down on a gibbet. Eyewitness accounts state that parts of their bodies were cut off, cooked and eaten.
It wasn’t just rage, it was the kind of fury that comes when people realise their leaders don’t see them as people at all.
The Murder of the Brothers de Witt, by Pieter Fris, 1672
A century later, during the French Revolution, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau warned, “when the people have nothing to eat, they will eat the rich.” And they damn well tried. What began as a genuine push for equality, an overthrow of kings, clerics, and the parasitic elite spiralled into something far darker.
The revolution’s early hopes curdled into a nightmare of paranoia and bloodletting known as the Reign of Terror. The man steering the ship, Maximilien Robespierre, transformed from idealistic reformer into a full-blown tyrant, swapping liberté, égalité, fraternité for mon chemin ou l’autoroute, my way or the highway, or in this case, my way or the guillotine.
At least, that’s the version we’re told: revolution gone mad, noble ideals betrayed by their own zealots. The truth, as always, is messier. Fear, famine, factionalism, foreign wars, and a political class so busy protecting itself it forgot who it claimed to represent.
But the warning still stands: when people feel ignored, exploited, and hungry — metaphorically or literally, they don’t stay polite for long.
Whether Robespierre was the only monster or just one of many monsters is up for debate. Over a few months, 2,000 people were guillotined in Paris and the total number of deaths across France was as high as 50,000.
It wasn’t long before the people turned on Robespierre too. He was arrested, (during which he was shot in the face) and they loped his head off. It was reported at the time that some of the mob ate parts of him too. They sent him to Madame Guillotine so the people could have a fairer France, and presumably so they could have something to go with their baguettes.
The Arrest of Robespierre, 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794). Engraving by Jean-Joseph-François Tassaert, after a painting by Fulchran-Jean Harriet.
The whole political machine runs on vanity, manipulation, appetite, fear, and the constant need to keep the public just confused enough to follow along. The slogans, the spin, the distractions, they’re not flaws in the system, they’re the operating manual. Politics rewards whoever can lie with a straight face, smile while selling you out, and wrap self-interest in a flag.
Refuse to swallow its bullshit. Don’t let slogans do your thinking for you. Don’t let politicians decide what you’re supposed to be angry about or who you should be angry at. Ask the questions they don’t want to answer, push where they don’t you to push, and remember that none of them, not a single one, is untouchable.
Politics might be the sin, but we don’t have to be the sinners.