Leadership Quote by Charles Simmons

Malice doesn’t need facts; it needs targets. Simmons’ line lands because it treats cruelty not as a hot-blooded outburst but as a disciplined habit with its own logistics: find a “mark,” invent a “pretence,” pull the trigger. The syntax is mechanical, almost procedural, and that’s the point. He’s describing a political pathology that thrives on momentum. Once the urge to wound is in motion, it will outsource its justification to whatever story is handy.

The genius of pairing “mark” with “pretence” is that it separates victim-selection from rationalization. First you choose the person (often the most visible, the most vulnerable, or the most symbolically useful), then you backfill the moral alibi. That reversal is a quiet accusation: in public life, “principle” is often a costume donned after the weapon is already loaded. Simmons isn’t warning about disagreement; he’s warning about the counterfeit version of righteousness that arrives with a smirk and a dossier.

As a politician writing in an era when mass newspapers, party machines, and propaganda were hardening into modern form, Simmons is diagnosing how reputations get managed like battlefields. The metaphor of shooting implies distance and safety for the attacker: malice operates best when it can avoid intimacy, complexity, and accountability. The line also hints at inevitability - “can always find” - a bleak recognition that in any crowded democracy, there will be someone eager to confuse aggression with duty.

It works as a moral warning and a tactical one: if malice is opportunistic, the real defense isn’t just rebuttal. It’s denying it easy marks and easy pretexts.