I was watching a clip of a memorial service earlier today, and it got me thinking about how we define "greatness" in public figures. We have this recurring cycle in our political culture where, the moment a heavyweight exits the stage, there is this immediate, almost frantic rush to canonize them. It doesn’t matter how much they polarized the public or how many times they flipped their stance overnight; the moment the eulogies start, they are suddenly transformed into "originals" or "larger-than-life characters."
It feels like we’re moving away from honoring the stability of the office and toward honoring the sheer force of personality. In the past, I felt like the respect was directed at the institution itself—the idea that the person sitting in the chair was a steward of a tradition. Now, it seems like the tradition is whatever the person in the chair feels like doing that Tuesday. We’ve traded steady hands for "swashbuckling" personalities, and I’m not sure if that’s a good trade for the long-term health of our governance.
I remember watching certain figures during their most combative eras, thinking, "There is no way anyone will be able to speak of them with such reverence in twenty years." And yet, here we are. The ability to pivot from being a fierce antagonist to a loyalist is something that used to be viewed as a political weakness or a lack of principle, but lately, it seems to be rebranded as "pragmatism" or "evolution." It makes me wonder if "consistency" is becoming an obsolete virtue in the eyes of the people we choose to lead us.
There’s also this weird tension between the idea of "America First" and the old-school desire to be the world's policeman. I’ve watched this tug-of-war happen for years, and it’s fascinating—and terrifying—to see how political players navigate that gap. You can claim to be a nationalist while simultaneously advocating for endless involvement abroad, and the modern political machine is incredibly good at making those two things sound like they belong in the same sentence. It’s a cognitive dissonance that most of us have just learned to live with, but it feels like we’re building our entire foreign policy on shifting sands.
I find myself looking at the "characters" of our era and wondering what they actually leave behind. Is it a set of lasting policies? Is it a way of life? Or is it just a collection of memories of how much noise they made while they were in the room? We seem to be increasingly enamored with the "disruptor"—the person who breaks things, challenges norms, and refuses to play by the old rules. But if everyone is a disruptor, then nothing is actually being built. We just end up with a lot of broken furniture and a lot of people shouting about how much they miss the person who broke it.
I’m genuinely curious if anyone else feels this shift. Do you think our tendency to romanticize "strong personalities" is actually making our political institutions weaker? Or is this just the natural evolution of a culture that is tired of the old, stuffy, predictable way of doing things?
Does a leader's ability to adapt—even if it means abandoning their previous convictions—make them a better survivor, or does it just make them a hollower leader?
It feels like we’re moving away from honoring the stability of the office and toward honoring the sheer force of personality. In the past, I felt like the respect was directed at the institution itself—the idea that the person sitting in the chair was a steward of a tradition. Now, it seems like the tradition is whatever the person in the chair feels like doing that Tuesday. We’ve traded steady hands for "swashbuckling" personalities, and I’m not sure if that’s a good trade for the long-term health of our governance.
I remember watching certain figures during their most combative eras, thinking, "There is no way anyone will be able to speak of them with such reverence in twenty years." And yet, here we are. The ability to pivot from being a fierce antagonist to a loyalist is something that used to be viewed as a political weakness or a lack of principle, but lately, it seems to be rebranded as "pragmatism" or "evolution." It makes me wonder if "consistency" is becoming an obsolete virtue in the eyes of the people we choose to lead us.
There’s also this weird tension between the idea of "America First" and the old-school desire to be the world's policeman. I’ve watched this tug-of-war happen for years, and it’s fascinating—and terrifying—to see how political players navigate that gap. You can claim to be a nationalist while simultaneously advocating for endless involvement abroad, and the modern political machine is incredibly good at making those two things sound like they belong in the same sentence. It’s a cognitive dissonance that most of us have just learned to live with, but it feels like we’re building our entire foreign policy on shifting sands.
I find myself looking at the "characters" of our era and wondering what they actually leave behind. Is it a set of lasting policies? Is it a way of life? Or is it just a collection of memories of how much noise they made while they were in the room? We seem to be increasingly enamored with the "disruptor"—the person who breaks things, challenges norms, and refuses to play by the old rules. But if everyone is a disruptor, then nothing is actually being built. We just end up with a lot of broken furniture and a lot of people shouting about how much they miss the person who broke it.
I’m genuinely curious if anyone else feels this shift. Do you think our tendency to romanticize "strong personalities" is actually making our political institutions weaker? Or is this just the natural evolution of a culture that is tired of the old, stuffy, predictable way of doing things?
Does a leader's ability to adapt—even if it means abandoning their previous convictions—make them a better survivor, or does it just make them a hollower leader?