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In his seminal work The Prince, philosopher and father of modern political science Nicolo Machiavelli wrote, \u201cIn the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no court to appeal to, one looks to the end. So let the prince win and maintain his state: the means will always be judged honorable, and will be praised by everyone.\u201d Many people have taken this to mean that Machiavelli was giving advice\u2014that if you\u2019re pursuing a goal, you should use whatever means necessary to achieve it. But I think if you read that line more closely, what he was really saying was that when a powerful person achieves a desirable end, people tend to decide after the fact that whatever he did to get there was a-okay. Seems more about perception than reality\u2014which is almost scarier, if you think about it. Because whether this is true or not, people in positions of power often seem to think it is. Narcissists are prone to that kind of magical thinking\u2014that whatever they try will turn out great, and everybody will stand up and applaud. For the baddies in today\u2019s story, that didn\u2019t work out so great.

Sources:
ABC's 20/20
LA Times, Framed by Christopher Goffard: https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-framed/#chapter1
Dr. Phil episode

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