“Welcome to Washington”
by Andrew Collins
House of Cards, the (triple) Emmy Award winning political drama created exclusively for Netflix, taps into our darkest fascinations and confirms our worst fears about the elite political scene in American politics. It left me sickened, but unable to turn away as a plethora of multifaceted characters maneuvered and masqueraded their way through a morality tale in which their only point of moral guidance seemed to be their own drives for power and influence.
The show follows antihero Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), a congressman from South Carolina and House Majority Whip for the Democrats. As it begins, a new President has just been elected in a landslide — Underwood having given him full support with the agreement that he would become Secretary of State in the new administration. As is often the case in politics, however, circumstances change and the President decides that he needs Underwood to stay in the House as Majority Whip.
Underwood only needs two words to express himself: “I’m livid.”
Things will get ugly.
As the human incarnation of Machiavellianism, Underwood knows how to play politics with a brutal deftness and seamless adaptability honed by two decades in Congress, and he will have his revenge, regardless of any collateral damage he must inflict in the process.
“So you lied to his face?” the Speaker of the House asks him, at one point, speaking of a union leader.
“No,” replies Underwood, “I revised the parameters of my promise.”
“Which is lying—”
“Which is politics,” Underwood interrupts, “The sort you’re well versed in.”
Politics is just that, after all, a game full of bluffing and give-and-take, but one with high stakes and not for the timid.
Before proceeding further, I must state two things plainly: One, Francis Underwood is a wonderfully crafted character — three-dimensional and full of desirable traits — the sort of person you hate to like, but like nonetheless. Two, Francis Underwood is a wicked man.
I mean “wicked” in all the vile fullness of the word — lacking even the slightest semblance of higher moral sensibilities. He has only one compass: the drive to power. This apparent absence of ethical inner conflict stands in sharp contrast to the cast of tempted and tried characters around him. That he remains a compelling character is a testament to the quality of the show.
Underwood wraps himself with the charm of a gentleman of the southern gentry. He speaks a clear, simple English with just a hint of southern drawl — eloquent, rhythmic and commanding, but not snobbish. It’s a delightful diction that looks back to the age when Walter Cronkite ruled the airwaves and The New Republic was in its prime. As a result, the signature line from the BBC TV series of the same name transitions nicely from high-chamber parliamentary dealings to the more rhetorically base halls of Congress:
“You might very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
The show further fleshes out Underwood the man by brazenly breaking the fourth wall. Once or twice a scene, usually as it is setting up or concluding, Underwood turns directly to the camera and speaks to the audience, acting as both a narrator providing commentary (“here’s what’s actually going on”) and tutor providing instruction (“you want to know how to play the game? watch the master, yours truly”). The move intentionally draws us out of the moment, but it works thanks to Spacey’s acting and the insight it provides into his character. Underwood has mastered the art of wearing many masks, so when he lets them all down to tell us what he really thinks it only draws us in further — as if we, the audience, are now privy to the deepest level of inside information: his true intentions.
For example, Underwood shows little regard for all the faux praise lavished on him — school libraries named in his honor and praise in the press. We get a sense that he feels like his real performance lies underneath it all in his raw political prowess, navigating the various interest groups and factions of the political realm — from city leaders in South Carolina to Fortune 500 lobbyists to up-and-coming reporters. He appears to draw satisfaction from the fact that someone, at least, can witness his masterpiece of revenge.
The violation of the fourth wall also showcases Underwood’s keen insight into the human political psyche. Many of the show’s most poignant moments come out in these asides. He understands that everyone has their idols — ultimate objects of adoration and affection which they will do anything to protect. Underwood says as much when he and his chief of staff plot to pressure a billionaire to acquiesce to his plan to become Vice President:
“What’s his weakness?” Underwood’s chief asks.
“His fortune.”
“Wouldn’t you say that’s his strength?”
“Not if it’s slipping away . . . This is a man who built his fortune from nothing. The money doesn’t mean anything to him. It’s what it represents.”
“Which is what?”
“His life’s work.”
Or consider Congressman Peter Russo, the closest thing to a victim in House of Cards. When Underwood discovers Russo’s past of drug abuse, drunkenness, and dalliance with hookers, the junior Congressman has no choice but to swear loyalty, donning the chains of blackmail that ultimately tear him apart. Underwood sums up the situation that we’ve seen all too often in our own political world:
“Politicians are chained to family values. So when you cozy up to hookers and I find out, I will make that hypocrisy hurt.”
To Underwood, even the most principled Bible-belt believers — the farthest thing from the power-driven pragmatism of DC insiders — have points of leverage, though the art of controlling them requires much more subtlety, as he explains to us during a meeting with two of his constituents:
“My people are a noble people. Humility is their form of pride. It is their strength. It is their weakness. And if you can humble yourself before them, they will do anything you ask.”
Underwood’s political goals hardly differ from those of everyone around him, but he’s better at playing the game, and he knows it. This self-awareness of his own naked ambition allows him to live in conscious defiance of any principled aim or moral code. If a refrigerator falls off the back of a truck in the middle of the highway, he says, it’s the refrigerator that ought to swerve out of the way. Toward the end of the season, Underwood recounts to the audience a conversation he had with a teacher many years ago.
“He asked me if I believed in heaven. I said no. And then he asked me if I had no faith in God. I said, ‘You have it wrong. It’s God that has no faith in us.’”
Few have the audacity to demand faith from God in themselves. But fewer still have the courage to confront the existential void that looms beneath political ambition. Not even Underwood. Sure, he understands the vanity of monetary pursuits well enough. After confronting a former staffer turned lobbyist, Underwood tells us that the lobbyist made the mistake of choosing money over power — something nearly everyone in DC does:
“Money is the mansion, falling apart and rotting after a few years. Power is the stone monument that stands through the generations. I cannot respect someone who doesn’t see the difference.”
More than anything, Underwood seeks a legacy. But in the pursuit he manages to avoid going a level deeper: after you’re dead, who cares? And what happens when the winds and rains of time inevitably wear the monuments away? His wife, Claire, senses this, as demonstrated in an uneasy scene, the two sitting by the windowsill late at night:
“I was thinking about when one of us dies,” Claire says.
“Well, if it’s me, and I’m sure it will be, you won’t be alone for long.”
“No, I mean, what will we leave behind?”
“We’ve accomplished a great deal. And I intend to accomplish a lot more for us.”
“But for whom?”
“For each other.”
“But if we’re not … Ah, I’m being silly.”
Silly? Hardly.
Those who have sacrificed everything at the altar of power and influence risk more than mere silliness to question the tautology that Claire exposes. If their accomplishments are for each other, then when one of them dies everything falls apart. When they both are dead, neither will have actually left anything worthwhile behind. Without the fervent protection of the builder, a house of cards will not stand long.
