The Act

Watched an NPD video where Safet Babic and some guys are trying to sound intellectual. Whole thing’s a production - policy discussion, economic ideas, immigration - designed to prove they’re not what people think. That they’re serious, cultivated, real thinkers.

It doesn’t work. You can feel them acting throughout. Every sentence is them being very careful, very aware of the optics. Which means that’s all you notice.

There’s a difference between thinking something and pretending you’ve thought about it. This is the second thing. Smart enough to know what people expect, not smart enough to do anything but throw money at it.

In a weird way it’s honest though. Pretending to be something is an admission of what you actually are.