Politics & Power Quote by Richard V. Allen

Politics rarely needs a smoking gun when it can rely on something duller and more dependable: human loyalty. Richard V. Allen, speaking as a public servant who lived inside the machinery, isn’t confessing to corruption so much as describing a permanent climate. The key word is “always.” He’s not arguing that favoritism occasionally intrudes on merit; he’s saying it’s baked into the appointment process the way friction is baked into motion.

The sentence builds like a weather report turning into a storm warning. “Pressure always build” (awkward grammar and all) captures the cumulative force of a transition: the incoming administration isn’t just staffing up, it’s paying debts, rewarding allies, and shoring up a governing coalition before it even governs. “Friends of influential supporters” and “nominees of powerful Member of Congress” are carefully chosen phrases. They shift the focus from the president’s personal whims to the broader patronage ecosystem: donors, party bosses, lawmakers with leverage. The president becomes less kingmaker than clearinghouse.

Subtext: appointments are currency. Competence matters, but relationships frequently matter first, because relationships are what keep a presidency from collapsing under its own isolation. Allen’s framing also quietly normalizes the practice. By presenting favoritism as inevitable, it moves from scandal to system, from moral failing to structural incentive.

Contextually, it reads like the insider’s translation of “personnel is policy” into its less flattering corollary: personnel is also politics. In a government where hundreds or thousands of roles can shift with an election, the real contest isn’t just who wins the White House, but who gets to convert proximity to power into a job title.