Politics is Boring. Trust Me On This.

John Thibault
4 min readAug 12, 2018
US Capitol Dome Under Constuction 2015

“I hate politics. I don’t understand Congress. And I have no idea about who to vote for in the election.” That’s what I used to say until the political gene turned on in my late 30's.

For me, politics was boring and nobody cared. Congress was just a bunch of guys in Washington and they were going to do whatever they wanted to anyway. Besides, it didn’t affect me.

So my position was I’d just vote for the candidate who seemed like a rock star and had the best curb appeal. The media and the Party would make sure I picked the right one.

But in 1990 I started a new job working in Governmental Affairs at MCA/Universal and things changed. On a daily basis, we were dealing with public policy issues and I soon realized there were three words I had left out of my former simple political assessment; issues, resources, and outcomes.

So if you plug these three words in, the formula suddenly changes.

Politics isn’t boring. It’s about issues.

Congress isn’t a bunch of faceless people. It’s a machine for allocating resources and setting the rules. And elections aren’t about celebrity stardom. Elections have outcomes.

Once I understood that the election altered resource allocation and this affected the actual issues in my life, it became clear…

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John Thibault

Founder, CEO iLobby & Author How to Change a Law, SWAY and The Political Game. Change policy and see around corners. https://ilobby.mykajabi.com/Free-Tutorial