This Election Season, Ask WWMD—‘What Would Machiavelli Do?’

Finding Hope in the Writings of a Renaissance Writer Who Knew the Minds of Tyrants and Charlatans

I have a mousepad on my office desk adorned with the Renaissance image of Niccolò Machiavelli and, beneath it in Italian, a very good question: Cosa farebbe Machiavelli? What would Machiavelli do?

Over the years, particularly at fulcrum moments in my life, I have engaged in silent discourse with it, staring into his ferret face and looking for guidance. I stared hard at it in November 2016, and I find myself asking for guidance now.

Machiavelli has been part of my life since junior high, when my history teacher assigned us book …