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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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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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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17/ We see this playing out now. People playing the "deplorability scorecard" game assigning points to every new appointee.
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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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18/ Staying in conflict mode is tiring. Switching to detente mode is relaxing. Real opposition takes energy. Ceremonial opposition is cheap.
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21/ UNLESS you expect Trump to get into fake-it-till-he-makes it mode and emerge as a statesman at the other end, vigilance is needed
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22/ And every single sign I see is suggesting the opposite thing: he's telling different people what they want to hear, he's not changing.
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23/ If you think he's strong enough to prevail and synthesize pluralist solutions out of the conflicts he's set up, kudos on your optimism
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24/ This is a don't-trust/verify-with-extreme-prejudice situation. So don't switch out of opposition mode simply because you're tired
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25/ As many have noted, if nothing bad happens (or even good things happen) it will be due to non-ceremonial opposition.
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