“Authenticity” can win elections… which may become a problem, obvs.

So this is from “Dreams Die Hard”. David Harris (author of the memoir) was an anti-Vietnam War activist who stood in Stanford University’s student union election, not expecting to get more than a respectable 30 per cent of the vote (or less). Then some frat boys jumped him, cut his hair and he got a lot of sympathy. Then he tried to throw the election by being… honest.

I had joined a race under the absolute premise that I stood no chance of winning and that premise was now a shambles. I felt trapped and set out to try and lose the final election before it was too late to escape. My strategy was to emphasize those of my beliefs that i thought would give the allegedly conservative Stanford student body both compelling reasons and a special incentive to turn out and vote against me……

The next day, David Harris carried 56 percent of the vote in the largest turn out in student-body election history.

(Harris, 1982:135)

Let’s see who is in the Whitehouse in January 2025… Biden probably, but if Trump gets the nomination (seems likely?) then anything can happen., I guess. Fun times.