People who succeed at politics are able to do so because they can see through the bullshit, but also because they can pretend it’s not bullshit. Politics is war without the violence. You need you be able to signal to potential allies what you’re willing to give and take with plausible deniability.

Many smart, principled people aren’t able to sufficiently lie to themselves or feel comfortable using ambiguous terms and/or outright lying, and that hampers their ability to covertly send and receive signals to others, so others who are successful at politics would do well to stay away from them. You have to compromise in order to get things done, but it doesn’t behoove you to lay out all of your cards for everyone to see.