I’ve met Elizabeth Warren. And let me tell you, she’s likable. She doesn’t send me Christmas cards, and she doesn’t remember me. But I’ve spoken to her and had my picture taken with her at a rally hosted by my friend and state senator Eric Lesser.
It was the first time, however, I saw Elizabeth Warren in person at a Massachusetts Teacher Association training that I experienced her energy and sincerity and decided to support her 2012 bid for the Senate. Warren had just been interviewed by the endorsement committee, which allowed her and the other candidates to stop by and say hello. She wasn’t just likable–she was electric. Sincere and energetic. It was clear she wanted to work for us.
As a presidential candidate, Warren is well-qualified. She has more experience as a senator than Obama did when he was elected presiden. She’s infinitely more qualified than the last two Republican presidents. So what’s the problem? She was excoriated by liberals for using DNA to confirm her Native American heritage. Now she’s being criticized for drinking a beer. The theme of the current news cycle is whether Warren is likable. What’s going on? She’s caught in an inauthenticity trap.
If you ever saw a bully operate, you’ve witnessed this kind of trap. The goal is to make the victim not only appear wrong but to feel wrong. When I was in high school, there was a kid associated with and bullied by the pot-smoking clique. They had named him “Narc.” (In our rural, late 1970s, Western Massachusetts community, “narc” was the term for “rat” or “snitch”). The kid had never “narced” or told on anyone, but it didn’t matter. He’d been saddled with an identity that wasn’t truly his.
Bullying this kid wasn’t about whether he actually had ever told on anyone. It was about his authenticity and whether the group would allow him to maintain his sense of self. The name was a way to make him feel self-conscious, a way to separate him from his sense of himself. I didn’t know the kid personally and how things played out, but the inauthenticity trap he was caught in has some predictable patterns. He would have tried to reassert his sense of self, to prove he is who he believes himself to be, and found his efforts only tightened the trap. His efforts to prove his authenticity would have served to prove his perceived inauthenticity. He was in a Catch-22, a double-bind.
Elizabeth Warren, to be clear, is not the victim of a bully. She’s a political player who put herself forward as a candidate, and that means facing fair and unfair attacks from opponents. She is, however, caught in an inauthenticity trap and attempts to defend herself have tended to backfire.
Consider the Native American non-issue. The evil genius of that attack is that it almost completely lacks substance. At one point decades ago, Elizabeth Warren listed herself as having Indian heritage. Her claim was based on family lore. Such claims were not uncommon once upon a time. (My mother’s family still makes the same claim). Conservatives and Scott Brown allies prompted media investigations into whether Warren had received special privileges from her claim, but the enduring, strategic advantage came with the laying of the inauthenticity trap.
In her runup to announcing her exploratory committee, Warren released the results of her DNA test and publishing the results. The political consensus was she had made a mistake. But what was Warren supposed to do? The (non-)issue will not go away. It’s an impediment to her presidential candidacy. She needs to address it, yet so far, defending herself against it just made her look worse. Even people politically aligned with Warren were critical of her. Another facet of the inauthenticity trap: even your allies tend to turn against you. It almost goes without saying that all of this attention distracts from Elizabeth Warren’s ideas and campaign.
The inauthenticity trap is a dilemma, and as my Holyoke Community College philosophy professor once taught, dilemmas have no solutions. The situation itself has to change. No single action will rectify things. In and of themselves, DNA tests and beer won’t help. What Warren needs to do to escape the trap is to transcend the dilemma, cast the inauthenticity trap as the bullshit game it is and rise above it by challenging the assumptions of the game itself.
Responding to allegations and questions about her Indian heritage, she must challenge the validity of the (non-)issue itself and answer with facts and the truth. What do I mean? When questioned, she should 1) challenge the question, and 2) provide the truth: for better or worse, based on my family stories, I once listed myself as a Native American. I did this because–like many Americans–my heritage is important to me, and I wanted to meet people who shared that heritage. I had no idea that I would someday run for the U.S. Senate and be the target of opposition research. I don’t know if I would have done anything differently. I never benefited from the listing.
In addition to an honest, factual narrative providing the truth, Warren should challenge the assumptions of those who bring up the (non-)issue itself and force them to identify and defend those assumptions. Her question to them should be, in essence, “So what?”
We should call the “Inauthenticity Trap” what it is — simple misogyny.
She’s already done what you recommend about the DNA test, that’s what her initial video contained. It doesn’t matter, and won’t matter. The “Pocahontas” attack has nothing to do with Native American heritage. Neither does the equally reprehensible attempt by Scott Brown to contemptuously call her “Professor” Warren.
These attacks are designed to appeal to pure, ignorant sexism.
There is not a lot that Ms. Warren can do about the misogyny of our political system, just as there was little or nothing Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton can do. That’s because the misogyny that hurts them is in their misogynist detractors, not themselves.
A January 3 piece in the Washington Post is titled “Before you run against Trump, you have to run against Hillary (if you’re a woman)” (emphasis mine):
A similar piece on the same day in the New York Times correctly cites “electability” as another euphemism for plain old sexism:
There are certainly valid non-sexist reasons to either not support or actively oppose Ms. Warren.
Nevertheless, I think it is absolutely crucial that we continuously call out the sexist headwind that EVERY female candidate must fight — nationally and right here in Massachusetts.
I think you are missing the point, Tom.
Of course, sexism plays a role in these attacks. And people are finally figuring out the bullshit for what it is. I’m trying to point out how it works. Sexism is translated into inauthenticity. Likability is translated into The out-of-touch professor is another inauthenticity trap. The trap works independently of gender politics. It was sprung on Al Gore, for example, when he was accused of claiming that he invented the internet. John Kerry stepped in it when went windsurfing.
Sure, it’s important that we call out the sexism, but it’s counterproductive for Warren to do so. At best, her doing so would be a political wash. At worst, she would be painted as claiming a double-standard for women, wanting to compete with men but not able to stand the same heat.
I agree.
My point, though, is that “inauthenticity” is not nearly so devastating for men as for women. History is chock-full of “inauthentic” men who were nevertheless elected to powerful positions. The mechanism appears to me as though it may be similar to racist dog-whistles. Towns who reject mass transit because it will attract “the undesirable element”.
I particularly agree that Ms. Warren cannot herself call out the sexism as such, except as humorous asides and one-liners (“I hear women candidates are most likable in the quiet car“).
I think that Nancy Pelosi will be our first woman President, after Donald Trump and Mike Pence are impeached and convicted.
It applies in different ways, but I don’t think this issue is uniquely female. How often has the question been asked regarding men whether he is someone you would like to have a beer with? As I recall John Kerry got slammed 6 ways to Sunday for not seeming authentic, just as an example.
Here’s from the Daily Beast today: Elizabeth Warren made her step towards the 2020 election at a campaign event in Iowa on Saturday, but was quickly pulled back into an issue that has plagued her when an audience member asked why she opted to release her DNA results. During an event in Sioux City, Iowa, an audience member asked Warren why she decided to undergo DNA testing “and give Donald Trump more fodder to be a bully?”
The first time I heard of Elizabeth Warren was back in 2006/7 when I watched a video of her speaking at Berkeley with the heading “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class”. It is an hour long video and I watched it three times in a row, taking notes the third time.
You need to understand that at the time, I was a recovering “Ditto Head” Republican who suffered a case of depression, blaming myself for a terrible year where I was unemployed, my wife was in the hospital, we had spent most of our savings to move to Massachusetts a year earlier, and now we were close to losing it all. As a believer in the free market, boot straps mentality, and the notion that anyone on welfare of any kind is a freeloading bum, the weight of it all came crashing down on me as I must me the single reason my family was failing. I was hospitalized for depression.
My sister, a life long Democrat, often recommended that I read Chomsky, Warren, and others to see things her way. I resisted. Then one day I came across this video and decided to give it a look. After my third viewing, I sent off an email to then professor Warren, thanking her for opening my eyes to the reality that I was not to blame and it was the system that was rigged against us. My wife and I were both college graduates, we had insurance, savings, we both took classes regularly to improve our education and job skills, We had two children and lived a frugal life, but in spite of all that, we were suddenly on the edge of bankruptcy because she was diagnosed with breast cancer on the same week that I was laid off at my job. Clearly, there is something wrong with the system and I thanked her for her work in showing that to me. I felt cleared of a great wrongdoing. I could be proud of myself once more.
A few weeks later, I received an email from her administrative assistant, The email said that while Professor Warren reads all her emails, she cannot personally reply to them all but nonetheless, she appreciated my email and hoped for the best for my wife and me.
Then a few months later, I received an email from Professor Warren herself. She explained that after reading our story, she had to write us personally and thank us for sharing our story and that she was glad that we were doing well, and that its people like us that inspire her to keep up effort to make things right. I wish I saved those emails.
Much later, when Professor Warren announced that she was running for the US Senate and would be holding her first campaign rally at Framingham State, my wife and I decided to go. We were late getting there. The auditorium was nearly full with just a few of us left in line, waiting to get in. At the front of the line, there was Elizabeth Warren, personally thanking each person who was attending.
I thought to myself, how, in a few seconds after this woman has already met hundreds of people, can I say “Hello, I sent you an email a few years ago and you wrote me back and ,,,,,,,” and not look like an idiot? Somehow, when that moment came, I just shook her hand and said, “Hello, my name is John and I’m from Franklin. I wrote you some time ago about your Berkeley video when I was out of work and…..” she stopped me right there, her eyes widened and she said “Hi John, where’s your wife, I hope she’s okay” She was, and she was right behind me. Elizabeth greeted my wife and gave her a hug.
That was all my wife and I needed to hear. She remembered us and what we went through. In the middle of her first campaign announcement, she was more interested in my wife’s well being than her campaign.
The next day, my wife and I went to the town clerk. I changed my voter registration from unregistered to Democrat and my wife changed hers from Republican to Democrats….and the rest is history.
Elizabeth Warren is authentic. No one will ever convince me otherwise.
Great story, John. That’s the Elizabeth Warren I encountered and liked from the beginning and the woman 15 of us in Granby decided to set up our own phone bank for.
Indeed, a great story.
Elizabeth Warren is the real deal.
I’ve met Sen. Warren in he first campaign and was very impressed with her authentic nature and her natural ability to connect with voters–never mind her energy of making sure everyone got a picture or a handshake. (I also spent a half-hour with her husband Bruce while we waited for a caucus to check in and found him to be down to earth–as a down to earth as a Harvard Law Professor can be.)
But I very much doubt I will be voting for her. My basic issue is, whether it’s in her style or personality…I’m not sure, Warren is the Zig to Trump’s Zag. They both can’t stop themselves to take things to the gutter. Sure, it’s Trump doing the baiting, and some things–like race baiting–have to be called out. But so far these “confrontations” don’t result in a perception that Warren rebuked Trump, but rather it’s played as another tit-for-tat that voters have been conditioned to believe how modern politics work.
I’m looking for a candidate that doesn’t get quickly pulled into Trump’s swirl of sh*t around him. I do think the overall electorate has Trump fatigue and the more the Dems offer a contract to his melodrama’s the better chance we win. Over the last three years, Warren has made herself the Alan Coombs to Sean Hannity…she is part of the Trump act.
I hear this advice often, regarding Trump and running against him “I’m looking for a candidate that doesn’t get quickly pulled into Trump’s swirl of sh*t ”
During the Republican Primary, Jeb Bush and the others refused to get pulled into it and acted like statesmen or businesswomen, or other stiff characters. We all know how that turned out.
In the general election we were told that when he goes low, we go high, and again, act like the establishment, complete with pantsuits and government titles. We all know how that turned out.
I’m not saying that our candidate has to be a con artist, a liar, a fraud, but they cannot be afraid or unwilling to get into the ring with this clown and expose him for what he is.
Look at how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking on the clowns and winning. That’s the path.
AOC’s responses to the right-wing attacks are almost perfect responses to avoiding the inauthenticity trap. The misguided attempt to shame her with the BU dancing video could have been left to implode. Instead, she challenged the assumption that there was something wrong with dancing (or looking happy) and did the video outside her office.
Couldn’t agree with this take more. 2020 is going to call for someone (or their team) to be able to do some Bruce Lee like movements and counters on social media to win. The beer did not deliver.
I think your very last phrase — “she is part of the Trump act” — is the most important thing that’s been published on BMG for a very long time.
Donald Trump has been closely associated with the World Wrestling Entertainment (“WWE“) since 2007. That association is why Linda McMahan (wife of WWE co-owner Vince McMahon) is now the head of the Small Business Association.
The “Trump act” is directly lifted from the WWE. The WWE shtick, for decades, has been to feature cartoon caricatures of heroes and villains, each hamming up their performances at exhibitions (they haven’t been called “matches” for decades, in order to avoid legal challenges involving sports betting).
We do see the Trumpists doing this day-in and day-out, led by Mr. Trump himself.
I continue to feel that Ms. Warren is far more effective as the senior Senator from Massachusetts than she will be even if elected President. I don’t agree that Ms. Warren is the “Zig” to Mr. Trump’s “Zag”.
I do agree that ALL of us have to somehow — forcibly if need be — pull the plug on Mr. Trump’s WWE act.
The “Trump act” is destroying our nation.
I agree with some of your analysis. Her shots fired at Trump were at first refreshing, and then… not so much. My guess is that it was her campaign’s way of putting her out there. It played better in 2017 than in 2018. I never understood the vitriol on the part of pundits and on the Left for her decision to release her DNA. The damage from that, if any, was minimal. What matters is what Warren does going forward.
One suspicion I have: that we also fall prey to the tactics of the right. I think part of the dislike for Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi was some seepage from the left, sexism translated into other terms.
I’m not supporting anyone right now. We still have a long way to go.
Or you might even say that the tragedy here is that someone so focused on and so good at policy has trouble becoming President because she can’t overcome a deficit in being a politician. Not only do we not as a nation elect people on their policy merits anymore, even well-informed voters have to weigh political skill — and weigh it more heavily.
Ultimately, that’s pretty sad.
Part of what I took from Tom’s first comment was the crazy game the media plays with electability and likability. It’s an old game that allows them to editorialize without stating their opinions explicitly.
On the bright side, things may be changing a little bit, but the media still wants to go back to those comfortable, pre-Trump days when they could talk about the color of Al Gore’s coats and W’s potential as a bar companion. As Tom said, we have to challenge that. I think Trump has opened things up for more direct criticism of the media. The Right has played that game unfairly for the last 30 years. I think the time is right for us to challenge them on their real shortcomings.
There’s that certainly. However, there’s also the increase in political polarization — or, to be less nice, the sheer dangerousness of the Republican Party that’s obvious with respect to climate change, the response to the 2008 recession, the mismanagement of the budget, healthcare., and the non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
It’s so dangerous that we’ve entered a defeat-them-at-all-costs kind of world.
That gives a hell of a lot of weight to electability.
True electability? Certainly a concern. As it ties in with “likability,” and “authenticity,” not so much.
I’m not sure what “electability” means in a world where a man who brags about how much he loves to violate women is elected president. As you correctly observe, the “sheer dangerousness of the Republican Party” is obvious to any rational person paying attention.
The concern I have about elevating “electability” in this context is that it has come to mean both desire and skill at lying, pandering to, and exploiting the darkest emotions of the most despicable elements of American culture — from individual demagogues, bigots, and violent thugs like Donald Trump, Rep. Steve King, and Rep. Greg Gianforte to propaganda outlets like Fox and Breitbart.
In my view, the “increase in political polarization” is the only acceptable response to a GOP that has become an organized hate group that currently controls the Senate and executive branch and that has currently paralyzed the entire federal government— on the personal whim of the tyrant in the Oval Office..
1972. McGovern wasn’t electable.
I appreciate your terseness, and still don’t understand.
The (major) candidates who competed in the Democratic presidential primary of 1972 were, in addition to George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, Edmund Muskie, and Shirley Chisholm.
According to Wiki, Mr. McGovern won 15 primaries compared to 5 for Mr. Humphrey and 6 for Mr. Wallace. The three front runners (Mr. McGovern, Mr. Humphrey, and Mr. Wallace) split the primary vote 25.3%, 25.8%, and 23.5%.
By the standards I fear we imply here, George Wallace was by far the most “electable”. He was very strong in the south. The failed assassination attempt that ended his primary campaign meant that we will never know what might have happened had Mr. Wallace finished that 1972 primary campaign. My father managed a small retail optician’s office a few blocks away from the site in Laurel MD where Mr. Wallace was shot. My father was a sheepish supporter of Mr. Wallace, and was ashamed by the attempt and terrified that it happened so close to my father’s workplace.
I remind us that Mr. McGovern was the clear grassroots favorite, and Mr. Humphrey was the choice of party insiders.
It could be that a learning from the 1972 campaign is that a strong grassroots primary candidate was, at least in the case of Mr. McGovern, a weak general candidate. Still, Mr. McGovern was a decorated WWII veteran (Distinguished Flying Cross) and well-respected Representative and Senator. He was well-regarded by America’s agricultural heartland, and had a long and distinguished political career before becoming our nominee. His “sin” was his steadfast opposition to the illegal Vietnam war.
In 1972, Richard Nixon was actively hijacking the US government for his own criminal purposes. He was committing acts that, when even only partially revealed, caused GOP Senators and Representatives to agree that he must be forcibly removed from office.
Did the Democrats have a more “electable” candidate in 1972? Should the Democratic Party have burglarized the CREEP offices, used government agencies for their own political gain, and similarly emulated the behavior of Mr. Nixon and his supporters?
I’m not sure what you intend by your reference to Mr. McGovern.
Finally, I need to say that my 1972 vote for Mr. McGovern in my home state of MD at the time was my very first vote in a presidential election, and I remain proud of it. I was very glad that I did not have to face the awful choice of Hubert Humphrey or Richard Nixon.
I remain convinced that much of the history that unfolded after the 1972 election would have been VERY different if Mr. McGovern had been elected.
Ditto for me. I think McGovern is still the candidate I most appreciated voting for. A smart man and a truly decent one. Too bad most of my fellow Americans preferred a sneak and a crook.
As Petr suggests, electability is more of a word game than an actual thing.
It is an actual thing: some candidates are effectively unelectable like “The Rent’s Too Damn High” candidate.
People use the existence of the actual thing as cover for the word games.
One X factor you fail to mention, and that is the implosion of Ed Muskie in NH. Was he a victim of a rightwing smear attack by William Loeb, editor of the Union Leader, or just to “emotional” to be President?
@ pogo: It appears that he was both.
Electability is merely thinking about what other people think about a vote. It’s another iteration of the prisoners dilemma.
The central statement of electability is : “I would cast a vote for candidate X, but I don’t think anybody else will, so I won’t cast a vote for candidate X.” If everybody thinks in this manner the candidate gets no votes, even though, if everyone voted the way they wanted the candidate would get all the votes.
I tend to view facebook and other forms of social media as ‘inauthenticity generators.’ I feel the same way about broadcast television. Everybody is trying to put their best face forward, guessing all the while at what people think about what they think and feel, and continually denying the ugly bits — which others are trying to expose them in the name of ‘authenticity’ (or in the name of ‘trolling.’) — until, ultimately, there is no escape from lying: you either have to maintain a facade that is unmaintainable, or attack a hideous caricature of others, and only people like Donald Trump, who have a limited intellect and a bottomless capacity to lie, ever ‘succeed’ (sic) at it.
It is worth noting that the original concept of a ‘facebook’ was a printed folio distributed to freshman at college that was not intended to be an end unto itself: It was a way of connecting names with faces, and mayhap a few other snippets of info, so that when you did meet in real life you knew enough to start a conversation. That was it.
We’ve divorce those functions and now facebook is an end unto itself. But we’ve held on to this notion of ‘authenticity’ as something that media (social or otherwise) can convey, when in fact, not only can it not convey this ‘authenticity’ it is adept only at conveying deceit and ‘inauthenticity.’
This interesting comment invites us to pursue a currently unmapped and unexplored continent — the stark difference between who each of us in “real space” (“meat space” for some of us old farts) and “virtual space”.
One of the first things noticed about email during its primordial beginnings in the late 1970s was the marked difference in tone and apparent personality between people and their emails. Decades later, in the early years of the web, something similar emerged from the “hot chat” internet sex rooms of the day (how many folks know or remember that “hotmail” began as a way of getting an online identity for this behavior) — people were COMPLETELY different online than they were in person. In particular, men and women who were quiet, pensive, and introverted in person were loud, boisterous, extroverts in the chat rooms.
Some researchers draw parallels to the behavior of automobile drivers, many of whom are dangerously aggressive and bullying behind the wheel while impeccably courteous, well-mannered, and polite in person.
Which persona is “real”? I enthusiastically agree that people are VERY different online than in person. What isn’t clear to me is which identity (and some people have several) is more real. One of the passages I had to navigate in my late forties was learning how to reconcile the several conflicting roles imposed by society with who I actually was.
Pretty much any competitive career path requires that the career be the top priority of any successful professional. While some companies give lip service to “work/life balance”, the men and women in the most powerful and best compensated positions are those who are always somehow on-hand and effective during each crisis with the top-shelf client or customer. Simultaneously, every good husband (at least in the 1990s) knew that wife and family were absolutely the top priority of life. Being there to put the kids on the school bus or manage the household while the spouse is consumed by caring for her aging parents ALWAYS takes precedence over any work “crisis”. We should not forget the exhortations of pretty much every Sunday mass that God and faith are the most important priorities of life, the universe, and everything.
It is not possible to simultaneously meet all these conflicting demands. I found myself slipping into roles, which I was very good at playing. At work, I was the energetic and committed team player. At home, I was the loving and committed husband and father. At church, I was the pillar of the church who always nodded sanctimoniously during the reminders of the centrality of “God”. Those roles gradually morphed into lies. Little ones at first, and bigger ones later.
I suggest that the web, and social media, amplifies and our ability to fall into these traps.
I think the unspoken mystery, that we still don’t understand yet, is the question of which of these is “real”.
True that. I think, for this particular discussion however, the mystery is — if we can’t decide upon which of ourselves is ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ why are we letting others do so?
To take but one of your trenchant examples, that of the “quiet, pensive, and introverted [] person [who] were loud, boisterous, extroverts in the chat rooms” I think that it is entirely possible that *both* are “real”, since one might clearly be a reaction to the other… but that we find that difference between them (reluctant as I am to say ‘contradiction’) as a fault or character flaw simplemindedly reduced to ‘inauthenticity.’ For someone to do that is a misprision. Contrast that to Marks example of the bully clearly falsely labelling someone a ‘narc.’ That’s clearly a deliberate lie meant to harm and, as Mark points out, to make the victim feel inauthentic… despite the fact that s/he knows the truth!
I think we are in agreement, because I think the end result of this conversation, at least as regards Elizabeth Warren (or any candidate), is that the ‘authenticity’ deck is mostly stacked against her in all but one place: the real world: when people meet her, they like her. I daresay this is/was true of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and others… and that the way out of the ‘inauthenticity trap’ is to no treat the media as the end unto itself — facebook is not the arbiter of ‘authenticity’– but to make an effort to tie what happens in the media to what happens in the real world. Or, put another way by Mark earlier:
Sorry, truncated a sentence. Meant to add that when people meet EW, they like her and find her ‘authentic.’ Judging with all available information, including any similarity and/or contrast with her ‘persona’ in various media.
I passionately agree, in spades.
I’ve had this reaction each of the several times I’ve met and spoken with Ms. Warren. Like all good public officials, she either remembers me or is very good at faking it (and I choose to believe the former).
Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton each have this same energy. It is an intensity of interaction that is electric in person and completely absent from any media experience. Mike Dukakis is like this. For me, at least, it’s a qualitative rather than quantitative experience.
This energy stands in stark contrast to my experiences with Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and a host of Massachusetts politicians who I’ll leave un-named.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the dominant communications media of our time so completely distort the reality of who these people actually are. We look in false pity at those who could only read about the great orators and influential people of our brief history — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, et al. We think of ourselves as “knowing” our figures today, to the point where our tabloids identify them only as “Liz” or “Hillary”, when the great majority of us know them only through the distorted lenses of our very imperfect media.
Whatever it is that the media is talking about when they refer to “authenticity” has nothing AT ALL to do with my own first-hand experience of the public figures I’ve had the opportunity to meet.
To everything there is a season, and while I for one try (I think mostly successfully if I do say so myself) to be as civil here or on FB as I am in person you and I have also discussed the limits of a platform like this from time to time as we have words but no facial expressions or body language to go on. Even in real life there are different personalities in different contexts. For example, I comport myself differently in a class full of kids I substitute teach than I do with friends, but both are real in there own way. I think it’s human nature to want to be more polished in public as opposed to private settings, and the former is not less authentic than the latter.
You’re differentiating between retail and wholesale politics. Retail politics is not mediated, and wholesale politics is almost completely mediated.