Conner was a member of the Progressive Party, but he held no position within the party.
Joining the Progressive Party did not necessarily mean holding office within it. Many party members were "independents"—they merely wore the label of party member and did not necessarily care that much about party affairs.
That was simply how society worked.
You were either with the Progressive Party or the Conservative Party. Of course, you could also choose the Socialist Party, but that was only a minority choice.
When society was not purely black and white but instead came in many colors, every natural person, as society's most basic unit, had to have a label of their own.
Otherwise, they would be excluded from society by its many rules and systems! Conner had no close friends within the party. Friendships between politicians were rarely that stable. In that regard, they were actually inferior to the friendships between politicians and capitalists.
It was like prostitutes and their clients. They always talked about feelings after every bout of pleasure, but what they were really discussing was business.
Business was more stable than feelings, and more lasting as well.
Once Conner understood the meaning behind Lin Qi's call, he began to have many thoughts of his own.
Gladstone was one of his closest friends—at least, that had been true before the presidential election. But as the election began, Gladstone's desire for control grew, and Conner gradually found the man difficult to tolerate.
They were friends and partners, not each other's fathers! If one thought more deeply about Gladstone's desire to control Conner, it was actually related to how the two of them defined their "relationship."
From Gladstone's perspective, he had been the one to give a man like Conner, who had no particularly great ambitions, the chance to