I have been told that wanting power is evil. I’ve also been told to let go of my judgments of powerful men.

Sometimes it can be hard to make heads or tails of this.

One cliché about power is, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In fact the relationship between power and corruption is more complex. If a person is already corrupt when he becomes powerful, then he will use his power to be more corrupt. If a person becomes powerful but doesn’t know what he is doing, he will be faced with all sorts of challenges and temptations that he will not know how to handle, leading him to become corrupt. Finally sometimes someone with integrity comes to power, and he maintains his integrity however powerful he becomes.

We see the last in people like Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. These people held themselves to a very high standard of conduct, and they governed with integrity. In their case, power was not evil. It was something that was used to do important things and was never used for wrongdoing.

One problem I see is that this kind of thinking creates an inverse set of incentives. People who are conscientious are convinced that power is evil, so who comes in but people who are not conscientious. So we see some Americans say that their country is a swamp where scum rises to the top. The better people are told to avoid power-wielding roles, leaving these roles in the hands of worse people. This has very serious deleterious effect on America..

Clinton was already a skirt-chaser before he became powerful, and in the Lewinski situation he was either not thinking or not exercising impulse control. He was, in that way, corrupt; and he used his position in the Oval Office to do something foolish. But in the United States, the president does not have monopoly on power. There are any number of non-governmental entities in United States that wield power, from Texas Oil to Jehovah’s Witnesses. So that when Eminem says, “The President gets his cock sucked and I have to care about what I write in my songs,” he is forgetting which country he is living in. If it had been North Korea, the leaders of the government would be the only people with power. But in America, many people have power, and that includes rappers with large followings. So, yes, you do have to care what you write in your songs. You have been advocating domestic violence. Any self-respecting father would beat the crap out of men who would do to their daughters what you did to Kim.

Really, who is a better leader: Clinton or Eminem? The first came from the bad side of town as well, but he does not act like a bully and does not advocate violence. He is the proof that someone can come from nothing and become President of the United States without being a bully. He is an inspiration for anyone who wants to improve his lot, in a way that also accords with doing good and improving things for others. And that makes him morally superior to people like Eminem or Donald Trump, the Lewinski situation notwithstanding.

Now Bill Clinton has never been accused of being power-hungry, but his wife has been painted as extremely power-hungry. The recent situation with Trump calls that into question. Trump would not accept the results of a legitimate election and tried to orchestrate what amounts to a coup when he lost. Whereas when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election – probably the last one in her life - she accepted that outcome and did not try to sneak or bully her way into power.

Does power corrupt? The answer is, sometimes. There are three situations with which one is working. One, the person is already corrupt and becomes more corrupt. Another, the person does not know what he is doing and becomes corrupt. And in another, a person of integrity comes into power and maintains integrity while in power.

This then is the answer to that question. Power is not evil; misuses of power are. Power and integrity need to coexist in the same vessel. And then the power becomes a tool of doing rightful things and never becomes a tool of corruption or abuse.

Ilya Shambat