thinking about how the virtualization of politics is gonna have a not insignificant effect on speechwriting and rhetorical styles. one-liners, zingers, and applause lines fall pReTty flat when you’re talking to a camera in your living room

in the world of fully-remote politics, Jeb(!) Bush's "please clap" energy is the new default. there's a fundamental mismatch between the old way of doing speeches and the medium they've been forced into

the first microphones and amplification systems had an authoritarian bent to them. they let aspiring dictators broadcast their message to “the masses”. the sound of a single voice could suddenly envelop tens of thousands of people, all at once

what is the political “grain” of Zoom? of pre-recorded speeches delivered from empty basements? there is a hollow, uncanny valley quality to them. a sense of distance that comes with so many layers of mediation

at least radio/tv allows you to occupy the same “time zone” as the speaker. even a re-run implies there was synchronicity at some point in the past. Zoom politics are out-of-sync

but maybe they also flatten the perceived distance between politicians and ordinary people

without all the trappings of fancy set designs and studio audiences and a *stage* presence, politicians fall back down to earth. they no longer seem quite as untouchable. they’re just vloggers/streamers like the rest of us