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I don't think anyone is entitled to public acclaim, and they can lose their status as public figure for any number of reasons, but everyone has a right to retreat into private. When that's impossible either because they can't sustain themselves or...
we hound people's very inner lives, by making the issue about their real intentions and or possible hypocrisy, then it starts to get into very bad territory.
People's real motivations and intentions are never clear, even to themselves. If we press too hard on what's merely "performative" or "virtue signalling" we go down into an abyss of unsolvable questioning that will inevitably become more and more vicious.
In fact, by questioning sincerity too closely we will just end up rewarding the best dissemblers
And that's why I think politics should focus on public policy and power, not on the permanent transformation of people's inner lives, which is their business.
Of course speeches and political appeals play on people's sympathies and emotions, but with the understanding that those gains are provisional and temporary. You may have the public's ear for a time and lose it.
Moreover, I think social media and the confessional oversharing style of the past decade has shown us that people's inner and private lives are both pretty gross and pretty banal.
Once one has progressed past adolescence you know what appear to be the deepest feelings and truest passions are not a reliable guide to one’s actual commitments as a person, they may be overwhelmingly strong one moment and gone the next.
