3/ He is responsible for leading those who sovereignly selected him. To be successful, he must become a paradox: a faithful servant executing the burdens of office and a manifestation of confident, driven leadership.
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4/ This demand creates a systemic conundrum: If the population perceives that he too easily tweaks his plans, he will be ridiculed as spineless and incompetent. If he charges ahead with policy agendas despite public outcry, he will be accused of ignoring the people's voice.
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5/ Democracy thus forces him to constantly and convincingly explain himself to the public, in order to keep as many citizens ‘on side’ as possible. In a democracy every act is scrutinized, and therefore every act must be justified. Democracy inherently necessitates rhetoric.
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Thibaut Retweeted Paras Chopra
6/ Yet here the leader runs into another terrific problem: people do not like rhetoric. Even though a democratic state relies on debate and discussion, citizens naturally become extremely suspicious of political rhetoric.https://twitter.com/paraschopra/status/858295979811848192 …
Thibaut added,
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7/ If it is flippant, it is written off as just more dishonest babble from self-interested politicians; if it is persuasive, it is seen as being undemocratically manipulative, thus dangerous. "Best not to fall for the rhetoric and recognize the true agenda." —
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8/ Rhetoric is thus the primary tool in the democratic leader’s kit, even though rhetoric itself is generally considered pathetically useless (promises sure to be broken) or as treacherous (tyrannically persuasive and illegitimately influential over the minds of the masses).
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9/ Consequently, the democratically elected leader instinctively attempts to make his rhetoric not sound like rhetoric: the “art of artless persuasion”. "When rhetoric becomes the king of quality is when emotion becomes the emperor of knowledge." —
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10/ The democratic leader therefore must seek to persuade without sounding persuasive. He has no choice but to use words to influence people — people who are automatically skeptical of his words to begin with.
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11/ This is the recipe that brews the general attitudes many of us have about politicians: we can never be fully certain that they are ever telling the truth. We must suspect that every statement is just a talking point.
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12/ It’s all strategic jockeying, leveraging, and maneuvering for some agenda. After all, while we demand that our leaders be honest, transparent, and straight to the point, we also know that we will surely punish leaders who simplistically tell us the truth.
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13/ This is one of the great ironies of democracy: we elect people to be calculating and strategic leaders and spokespersons on our behalf, even while we are simultaneously suspicious of the calculating and strategic manner of speech we force them to adopt.
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