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Your explanation of the phenomenon reminds me of a stage play or professional wrestling, where everyone knows everything is fake, but we're supposed to suspend our disbelief in order to have a good time. As a Democrat, I feel immense frustration at the kayfabe that the DNC apparently wants all of the electorate to play along with, for the sake of their careers and status and pride and all that, when politics is theoretically supposed to be about actual real life. An election loss like this has consequences; the people who failed to win should be expected to be held accountable for their failures and to honestly assess their failures so as to not repeat them, because their failures hurt many more people than themselves, and yet they're just insisting on play-acting on stage for the audience.
I think Dave Chappelle called Trump an "honest liar" for just telling the electorate that the whole system is fake, while playing along with the fakery. I wonder if there's room in the Democratic party for someone to take on a similar role.
I'm also reminded of the line "magician is the most honest profession there is; he tells you he's going to fool you, and then he fools you." Magic shows are fun, but a stage magician who insists that everyone truly believe that he has supernatural powers, and not as part of his act, is probably not going to gain too many fans other than cultists
Well don't let the words of some guy on the internet get you down. I think it is technically possible to be too cynical when it comes to national politics. The reverse is the more common folly imo.
The theatrics are front and center, inside and out, on the front-end and in the back end. Insiders, pundits, campaign staffers, candidates and the political class at large gives a lot of attention and time to concepts like narrative, optics, and messaging. There is mandated finger wagging from some Klein/Yglesias Debbie Downer to say Policy is What Counts and, yeah, probably so. Policy ain't a campaign though.
It's optimized. Both parties distill turnout driving messaging all the way down to "most important election of our lifetime". I like candidates being more honest and direct about stuff than doing the politics, but I think we're in the minority. It wins more elections. Simple as.
I didn't vote for the guy either. Capturing authenticity in a market saturated with fakery, hackery, and theatrics? It's smart. It's not a one-in-a-million Trump strategy that can't be replicated. Walz was supposed to be authentic. I didn't really buy it. Vance was presented by the media as an inauthentic robot early on. I think people oversell his Normal Guy status, but he's not standing-awkwardly-in-a-donut-shop.jpg as presented.
Even in a staged McDonald's photo op, with obviously screened patrons Trump comes out looking authentic in a way that Kamala never could match. I saw (admittedly, low hanging internet comments) Dems screaming "but it's fake!" Yeah. It doesn't matter that it's all staged. Voters know it's staged. Voters know he loves McDonald's. They like watching him bullshit with a worker and pretend to cook fries. It resonates.
My guess is national/DC Dems have too many people that have drank the Kool-Aid. Trump will sometimes pull the curtain up, but the swamp remains undrained! This run on the podcast circuit (will see more of that) I heard him speak a few times about people he is meant to hate -- Chuck Schumer, for instance -- as normal colleagues playing a game. If he loses the election, then he might be going to jail at the behest of these people! That is a calming, confident response. Hate the man for his faults and failures, but that's a base leadership quality people recognize. Might be a product of the assassination attempts as I don't recall that kind of candid (comfortable?) speaking in 2016.
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