Machiavelli’s Advice to America

In The Qualities of the Prince, Machiavelli discusses a number of traits that he believes a prince or ruler of his time must have to be safe, successful, and loved by his people. Machiavelli believed in exploring both sides of an issue, “the art of war and the art of life, liberality and stinginess, cruelty and clemency, the fox and the lion” (36). Most of his instances have something to do with war, he is very repetitive in many of his believed traits and he stands firm with them by giving many examples. By reading The Qualities of a Prince it is very easy to assume that Machiavelli was brilliant in his thoughts during his time, this leaves one to ponder the thought of how successful these traits would be in modern American politics.

American politicians have somewhat mirrored a number of the qualities mentioned in Machiavelli’s essay. A unique trait that is possessed by many of Americans great leaders of the present and especially the past is war experience. Leaders take pride in our military and as Machiavelli explained, they know people would much rather follow a person that would fight next to them than one that wouldn’t. Although American leaders have not and would not recently stand toe to toe with other soldiers while they were in office, most volunteered and when needed fought courageously, gaining a tremendous amount of knowledge for future occurrences. Exemplifying courage and wit tremendously is a leader of the past, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Fighting in World War Two, Kennedy was a lieutenant on a PT 109. One night aboard his ship at sea, it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer causing enough damage to sink the ship. Kennedy dragged a wounded sailor for four hours to land, earning him the Navy and Marine Corps medal for Gallantry in Action. Anyone willing to fight for America would respect and be willing to follow and listen to a man with a background of Kennedy for these reasons, exemplifying one of Machiavelli’s qualities.

Preparation for all obstacles is the center point for most of Machiavelli’s qualities, he stresses intensely on the fact of keeping your peoples faith while doing so, “for a prince must have two fears: one, internal, concerning his subjects; the other external, concerning foreign powers” (48). But this faith is not just given to a leader, it is earned through experience “a prince who does not understand military matters cannot be esteemed by his own soldiers, nor can he trust them” (Machiavelli, 38). America is known to be the elite government po

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