He wouldn't be the first desperately poor person in a big city to turn to a certain kind of performance art as a coping strategy
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I've read a couple of his authenticated "proclamations", they seem fairly lucid and at times to be "in on the joke"
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Like formally "dissolving Congress" for being a waste of the people's money seems like it's straight up satire, not delusion
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I mean, as an emotional coping strategy and a way of making a living it clearly actually did work
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Replying to @arthur_affect
People playing along with the bit accepted "Norton dollars" who would've sneered at a poor person "begging for handouts"
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Norton is in that sense an anti-Trump - starting w no money and no power he charmed ppl into buying into his act
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Whereas Trump actually is President, ppl aren't buying it regardless bc they hate him, so now he's trying to force it
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Norton's "madness" was played up by ppl who caught wind of the legend, of course, and there's a lot of fake "proclamations" by copycats
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Replying to @arthur_affect
The stories say ppl honestly did believe he was an "eccentric millionaire" and when he died were shocked to learn he was always flat broke
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Replying to @arthur_affect
The hardnosed framing would be San Francisco had been supporting a street person in return for his entertaining antics
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But Norton's act worked bc he committed to it so thoroughly that it never felt like that
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Replying to @arthur_affect
If he'd ever tried to make "real" money off of it by selling autographs or whatever it would've collapsed instantly
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Replying to @arthur_affect
The ambiguity - "Is he just fucking with us or does he really believe it" - was necessary to the magic of it
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