I have heard the word "transactional" used to describe a politician. The online dictionaries I've consulted do not provide a definition that seems to fit. It seems, in context, to mean that the politician is NOT acting out of any ideology or overall policy, but just to be seen as the victor on every action. The dictionaries do not appear to provide a definition like that. I cannot tell from context whether the word is being used as an insult or compliment - or possibly neither
To me, transactional would mean, in effect, considering each act as a trade for something — a transaction. He/she would receive something of value in exchange for whatever service/vote they are providing.
To me, transactional would me, in effect, considering each act as a trade for something — a transaction. He/she would receive something of value in exchange for whatever service/vote they are providing.
Yep, you are calling them a political whore.
Not necessarily, as a large part of governance is advocating for your particular district, thus often, in the proper context, transitional is beneficial to all, as politicians, in particular, are more willing to compromise, if they each gain something in exchange for their votes.
So while that too is entirely 'transactional', it's done in an effort to help both sides, not just enriching the politician, benefiting his constituents, at least theoretically.
Not necessarily, as a large part of governance is advocating for your particular district, thus often, in the proper context, transitional is beneficial to all, as politicians, in particular, are more willing to compromise, if they each gain something in exchange for their votes.
It seems that mainstream media tends to (at least) infer a negative connotation to: Transactional.
Most ordinary people complain about too many Politicians adhering to ideology instead of the interests of the majority of their constituents. Worse, too many Politicians seem to care more about being vindictive rather than being willing to compromise.
While maintaining a level of ethics is critical for those holding the public trust. Elected officials, Bureaucrats, and other entities interacting with government, should be Transactional in that they should be seeking the best deal practicable for their constituents.
I have a political ideology, and a personal morality. (I give money, or more often I volunteer my labor and other services for Charities and select individuals; however, I vote for quite limited Government support for individuals.)
Being in the political minority where I live, I vote for elected officials who will negotiate the best deal possible; NOT Politicians who promise a Stirling adherence to ideology, then "Tilt at Windmills" and the result is worse than a "Dreaded" compromise!
Being in the political minority where I live, I vote for elected officials who will negotiate the best deal possible; NOT Politicians who promise a Stirling adherence to ideology, then "Tilt at Windmills" and the result is worse than a "Dreaded" compromise!
Of course, politicians love to call things compromises that are nothing of the sort.
"I agree to only take half of what you have." is not a compromise.
I have to suspect that most uses of transactional regarding a person are at least mildly derogatory. That it is used to indicate that they don't have a strong sense of what is right or wrong in a situation, but are willing to trade.
This is particularly true in political contexts, because there you do have an enormous number of people with strong senses of what should be done (even if there is wild disagreement in what that something should be).
Mostly, I see it as derogatory, coming from a view that politicians should either have values that dictate their actions, should do what their constituents would want them to do, or some other external thing.
On the other hand (and playing devil's advocate), I could see someone making the argument that every negotiation is a transaction and thus being 'transactional' means getting the best results for their constituents / the country / etc, rather than standing on principle in a way that does worse for those groups.
One of the usual connotations of being called 'transactional' seems to be that the goal is not the best deal for those groups but instead for the politician personally, though. In that case, it's pretty much always derogatory.
In my understanding the connotations are generally strongly negative, and "transactional" describes a personality that has no principles, no true beliefs, and see no inherent value in friendships or allies. In everyday relationships such person is insufferable, often sociopathic and/or narcissists who eiter doesn't understand or doesn't care about emotional reactions of others. It is, however, to an extent, conducive to business, especially apparently high level business in American style unregulated capitalism as you might find a lot of that type there.
In politics... well, all people who seek elected office are by definition crazy; this particular flavor of flaws has its uses. Still, transactional people are generally unreliable, or rather, reliable to do the worst thing possible (devil will always offer a better deal), and untrustworthy.
No, I don't think that is definitive characteristic at all. Even in undeniably corrupt systems, state work is usually much less rewarded in money than average business (in some extreme cases especially so, already accounting for the eventual bribery). In many cases it is outright expensive to enter into politics, both in money and especially time and effort that could be spent more profitable. However, scammers and fraudsters do occur (and one quite typical now is a US president currently, somehow), I won't deny that.
It's much, much more about power, in it's many forms and obfuscations. Wealth comes into play on that, sure, but at least equally as just means to an end and not so much an end on itself.
It is interesting that over 90% of US Federal politicians come out of office much richer than they went in. Since the Senate salary has now reached $174,000 per year, it doesn't explain how they are now worth millions.
Nancy Pelosi was worth about $3.5Million when she was elected to the House of Representatives. Last year it was estimated at about $275Million.
Bill Clinton was complaining he might have to file bankruptcy due to all the "persecution" but he was able to buy a house in NY for almost $2Million and perform $300,000 of improvements to the property and a few years later buy the next door property for $1.2Million.
Where does it all come from?
I'm not in US, and only follow going ons there because, unfortunately, we can't afford not to. Not so naive to think US would actually fire nukes to... say, protect gay rights in Latvia (from a vindictive neighbor), but a credible threat of that was what in minds of many US exist(ed) for, and why it got away with much of crap.
And yeah, as empires tend to became, US certainly was looking more and more like a corrupt system, and now it's going to get institutionalized openly.
With the Clinton example you cite, I don't see the members as so outlandish. Pelosi, like many in Congress, from both sides of the aisle, has made a lot of money in what is essentially legalized insider trading.
It's not so much a corrupt system as it is a failing one. As a long-term history buff, this has all the hallmarks of most societal collapses throughout history. The Mesopotamians, the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans. In each case, it was the end of an era, and was marked by widespread questioning of the system before a total collapse (i.e. Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burned around him, unconcerned with how many died or whether he lived or not.
Then, society collapses for hundreds of years as the 'Barbarian' hoards sweep in and utterly lawlessly abounds. And sadly, we're a carbon copy of ALL of those history episodes, and our short experiment of the 'longest lasting democracy' comes to a crashing and humiliating end.
I'm not looking forward to the coming decades, as I'm guessing many of us are ultimately unlikely to make it, as modern 'civilized' folk just aren't nearly cut-throat enough to survive. Our children's children … possibly, though that's a 50/50 chance, at best. But, at least in the U.S., we overwhelming voted for it, so we got exactly what we wanted.
A major part of studying history isn't just reading what the victors say of history, but what they conveniently sweep under the rug.
Yeah, upvote to this.
With Turkey and Israel finishing their own slide into dictatorship at the same time the US are willingly failing the outlook is really grim. The age of digital feudalism is upon us, and can mankind survive that is utterly unclear, and nearly up to China... Which is, for all it's flaws, at least relatively stable and functional (or maybe I'm failing for subtler points of their propaganda), but they too wouldn't have any incentive to hold back on their darkest tendencies without outside check the business integration with US was partially providing.
While Europe had yet a chance to reemerge, I have little hope that can be successful without a decisive victory in Ukraine, and that seems unreachable right now out of sheer indecisiveness which is indicative.
You and I have nearly opposite perspectives about what is occurring.
Only the future will reveal whose speculation is more correct.
My concern about Turkie is that Erdman has destroyed the Secular nature of the government, reverting to an Islamist Kleptocracy.
Isreal is far from a dictatorship, it is an Oligarchy of a Self Appointed Supreme Court, that overrules the elected government.
The conflict in Ukraine is not of much consequence. Russia is a receded state. Much noise, but little power.
What should have taken Russia 3 or 4 weeks, they've been unable to achieve in 3 years, revealing the Fundamental Weaknesses of Putin's would-be Tzardom.
If it wasn't for the Greens severely Limiting Nuclear Power in Germany, Petroleum exports from the USA, etc.; Russia would be impoverished. Artificial increases to Putin's fuel Profits have allowed Russia to appear stronger than it is.
50 years from now the conflict in Ukraine will be as well remembered as the Malay Emergency of the 1950's is now.
Seems we agree that kleptocracy is on the rise globally, we just may disagree on with political side facilitate it most. How the oligarchy operates, they are usually in both/all to hedge their bets.
Russia may be, is, a failing state by the metrics we on this side of trenches use to gauge success, but those are nearly irrelevant on their side. Despite the sluggish (lack of) success on the battlefield, they have been tremendously successful in other areas. I see Putin as important node, perhaps even the keystone in the very real shadow cabal out to change the world order for their liking, to one illiberal and inherently oppressive.
Well, in regional isolation Ukraine is "just" a fireup episode in a thousand years war between civilizations, and as much it is my war as well, I see how you may dismiss it as such. For Putin, Ukraine was an early step in a campaign, and had indeed failed, already, regardless how it turns out in the coming decade. However, the main consequence of this was is direct, naked challenge to the rules based world order; Russia should not be allowed any measurable amount of victory for that alone.
However, with Putin's victory in US it's nearly a moot point now. How Trump is tolerating this level of humiliation, being treated as a vassal by Putin, it is extremely bizarre to see. And how Witkoff outdid Solovyov (the main Russian TV propagandist) in spouting well debunked lies and Kremlin talking points in his interview with Carlson... Those people are either extremely cynical liars or are living in an alternative reality built solely on Russian propaganda (my working guess is combination of both).
Plus all the talk about Canada and Greenland that 1:1 mirror Putin's talk about Ukraine before the invasion, it's such a sweet gift to him, and all aggressive autocrats anywhere.
Given half a chance Putin will challenge NATO borders. It's extremely easily to imagine Donetsk 2014 style operation in eastern Latvia or Estonian Narva, and I have absolutely no confidence such would receive timely and competent response in today's world.
and had indeed failed
Forgetting the meat-grinder losses, it's actually been a success. Russia now has the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine under its control, it has their natural resources including those not-so-rare rare earth metals that the USA covets, and it has several more Black Sea ports in its portfolio. And Ukraine is on its knees and unable to mount a counter-offensive.
AJ
Yes, they have had limited success on their minimum goals, as in, "land bridge" and railroad to Crimea (Sevastopol strategic port). Siege of Mariupol discounted, they reached those in under two weeks at the start of the full-scale invasion.
Yet, they have continued to attack, at a price of over thousand men a day, ever since. And in fact, they have been rolled back even from that initial success, partly. They had to abandon (at least for now) idea of sizing Kharkiv and Odessa, both arguably *more* Russian-speaking and Russia-leaning prewar than Zaporizhzhia and Kherson ever were.
Speaking of, they had to retreat from Kherson (and that they were *allowed to* as we have learned since, was one of the greatest betrayals of Ukraine by US and partners so far; we talk about several dozen of thousand prisoners of war not taken, including a whole army headquarters...) Unironically, US direct support or not, one of if not the most successful operation of this war so far for Russia had been the retreat from Kherson, (and second was the escape from Izium, although they lost all heavy equipment there). Had those two ended with the mass surrenders that could have been achieved... well, that's water under the (destroyed) bridge.
four regions
You're dangerously close to falling for Russian propaganda in your wording, but I will accept that as rhetorical. As the situation on the ground is, they only control anywhere near 100% of one of the regions they want to claim on this, lowest of the three levels of goals, and that is the least consequential: Luhansk (north east corner of Ukraine, the regional capital is on the very south east edge of the region and was sized in 2014 already).
Donetsk region, they have painted most of the territory now, yet they're still not even close to lay siege to the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk three-headed agglomeration in the north west of the region. They claim those fortress cities they never controlled in their "peace proposal".
Kherson, they were driven out of the city of Kherson itself, along of the part of the region on the west bank of the Dnipro river. Russians pretend the entirety of the region is now their "constitutional" territory. Zaporizhzhia, they haven't ever been anywhere close to attack Zaporizhzhia city with anything else but rockets and glide bombs from a distance.
Kharkiv, they were driven out of it entirely, from effectively a siege of the city (home to one of the three principal armor factories of USSR). Although right now they again do hold a couple corners on the border and one small bridgehead over the Oskil river, they have (for now) abandoned claim on the region.
Odessa they never entered, and Dnipro (where every single ICBM of the USSR was built; they can't even service those without Ukrainians) had remained a distant goal as well.
However, when I talk about strategical failure of the Russian war effort, I mostly have their maximalist goals, and those are going far beyond territorial: now even complete conquest of Ukrainian land would still be a failure on those. Razed Mariupol alone ensures that, the unique heavy industries housed there are destroyed and so is most of infrastructure necessary for it. Even Ukrainian manpower loses are also Russian loses on this level, as those are now denied for the continuation of their campaign Ukraine was intended as a base for.
Failure to capture control over Ukrainian industrial base and population intact is the major strategic defeat Russia had suffered in this war, and that is definitive and cannot be amended regardless of any effort because those assets are either destroyed or rendered incompatible by the very war launched to size them.
Failure to deny Ukraine access to the Black Sea is less definitive, as in, it can at least in theory still be achieved through future success on battlefield or in negotiation, and so is the control of remaining territory of the regions enumerated above. Yet, it is, at this time, a complete failure on the middle level goals.
Even the limited success on the minimum goals remain contested. While it is indeed unlikely Ukraine will be able to launch major offensive maneuvers this year, I wouldn't rule out possibility of them regaining such capability in relatively near future, even regardless of continued US support (with had been less than 25% of total needs covered overall (not to say, even less of wants, but those are unlimited by definition)), despite some unique capabilities that would difficult to replace directly. I think people seriously underestimate Ukraine's dependence on US, and both willingness and ability of them to continue defense at least in absence of outside support.
What can change the calculation is US switching sides actively, and either rescuing Russia from the looming material exhaustion, or tacitly allowing China to do so (although is China willing, or only using US sanctions as a fig leaf for own policy remains unclear).
Public Service is a "transactional" phrase in politics which means serving ones own goals by servicing your constituents.
Gary