The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The many faces of evil

7) Manipulating people into doing their bidding.

Politics is a dirty game, and it gets a hell of a lot dirtier in a world where there aren’t any laws.

You’d think that politics would die out in a zombie apocalypse, but, sadly, you’d be wrong. So long as there are still people around, there will be other people who want to have control over them for one reason or another, and this is where the zombie of politics will rise up.

The post-apocalyptic politician will do a lot of the sketchy things present day ones do, like lie to or sellout their constituents, but, the thing they’ll likely do the most is try to manipulate them into doing things that will, ultimately, serve the politician’s ambitions.

Let’s look at an example from everyone’s favorite politician in The Walking Dead: Gregory.

After losing an election to Maggie, rather than try to make amends for siding with The Saviors in the war and possibly win Hilltop’s next election, Gregory instead chose the lazy option: Have Maggie assassinated.

He waited until the first tragedy of Maggie’s “administration” (I honestly don’t know what to call Maggie’s period in charge after the election, considering she already was in charge before that so, I’m going with “administration”) occurred, in this case, Ken’s death, and then used his father, Earl’s, grief (Along with some booze) to convince him that it was Maggie’s fault, and that he needed to kill her to avenge his fallen son.

This is the sort of thing post-apocalyptic politicians might resort to, and you need to be wary of them. If you have someone who is utterly self-serving (Even if it’s to their long-term detriment) or has manipulative tendencies, you need to ditch them at your first opportunity. You do not want such a snake in the grass trying to manipulate your group into following them, or else you may wind up with loyalists to this viper in your midst trying to see their ambitions fulfilled for as long as you live, which, frankly, might not be that long.

So, those are just some of the ways hostiles might come at you in a zombie apocalypse. Hopefully, I’ve left you more aware of their tactics so you can spot them before tragedy befalls you. Do you have any other nefarious tactics you think people need to be on the look out for? Let me know in the comments! And, if you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!