6/ There is a convention in politics to pretend that incumbent, having won, represents all, and will pursue policies benefiting all if poss
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Replying to @vgr
7/ This is the benefit of doubt amount accepting fiction that they are the 'right person who might do the right thing for the right reason'
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Replying to @vgr
8/ But for the fiction to work, the incumbent has to play powerfully to it, step up, and into the role, the mask of the office.
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Replying to @vgr
9/ The more deeply the person 'fakes it', the more opposition becomes a theoretical, ceremonial, adversarial position.
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Replying to @vgr
10/ And the better the faking, the less you need to work on actual imaginative alternatives. You can phone in gestural stubs of alternatives
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Replying to @vgr
11/ This is a picture of the politics of detente: between elections, there is political "peace", opposition and alternatives are ceremonial
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Replying to @vgr
12/ What happens when there ISN'T a detente? When incumbent either doesn't care to fake 'leader for all' well enough, or is unable to?
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Replying to @vgr
13/ Old habits die hard. We are used to leaders who can be trusted to play the 'fake it till you make it game.' Who can be expected to grow.
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Replying to @vgr
14/ It's not actually unreasonable expectation to hope leaders enter as politicians, and exit as statesmen/women, even if not 'great' ones
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Replying to @vgr
15/ Even GWB, not my favorite by any measure, grew as a person in office. He left as "our" President, even if one most were unhappy with.
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16/ These habits are strong. We are tempted to drop substantive opposition/option creation and go ceremonial the moment someone wins
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Replying to @vgr
17/ We see this playing out now. People playing the "deplorability scorecard" game assigning points to every new appointee.
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Replying to @vgr
18/ It's as though we believe there is a magic scale where if he scores D- on a "didn't enable awful forces" card, it's detente not conflict
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