SCENE: A modest office. Not ostentatious — that would be bad optics. A man sits with a laptop. Someone has forwarded him the document. Perhaps his social media team. Perhaps a well-meaning relative. He reads it.
THE FIRST READ
He gets through Marcus's comedy section.
Closes laptop.
Opens laptop.
Continues.
By Sylvia's tragedy section — "the man who stood in line for three hours to vote is now watching two men who called each other criminals shake hands" — he pauses. Reads it again. This one lands differently. Not as a joke.
By Hiroshi's section he's skimming. He doesn't have time for forty-minute black-and-white films right now. He has coalition arithmetic.
By Raj's horror section — "a creature that should not exist but walks toward you anyway" — he makes a sound that could be a laugh or could be something else entirely.
Then he gets to Kevin.
He reads Kevin slowly.
He reads Kevin again.
WHAT HAPPENS INSIDE
There are actually four people inside any political leader reading satire about themselves. They argue simultaneously, which is exhausting.
Person 1: The Strategist
"Who wrote this? Where did it originate? Is this opposition-funded? Check the metadata. Actually don't check the metadata, that looks paranoid. Who has seen this? Is it viral? Define viral. Get me numbers. Is it positive viral or negative viral? Can something be neutral viral? Don't answer that."
Fourteen WhatsApp messages sent in ninety seconds.
Person 2: The Ego
"The Sunrise Coalition is clearly the protagonist. The hero. Even in the tragedy version, even in the horror version — Sunrise is the one the narrative is rooting for. The Old Guard and Strongmen are literally described as a biological impossibility. A creature. A reluctant tango with stepped-on feet. I mean. They wrote that themselves. Not us."
Feels briefly, guiltily good about this.
Then re-reads the hamartia line.
Feels less good.
Person 3: The True Believer
This is the quietest of the four. He's been there since before the first public rally, before the symbol was registered, before anyone took this seriously. He reads Kevin's part — "they voted despite knowing politics is broken, that's stubborn and extraordinary" — and something in his chest does something inconvenient.
Because that's exactly what he tells himself at 2 AM when the arithmetic doesn't work.
That the people who voted weren't fools. They weren't naive. They were stubborn and extraordinary.
He sits with this for a moment longer than the Strategist is comfortable with.
Person 4: The Former Audience Member
Because before all of this — before the symbol, the rallies, the results — he was, in some way, also a person who watched things unfold and felt that something should be different.
He reads the grandmother line.
"She walks to the voting booth. Lights fade."
He thinks about how many grandmothers walked to booths for him. With his symbol on their finger. In the heat.
This is the most dangerous thought a leader can have mid-negotiation, and the Strategist immediately shuts it down.
WHAT HE ACTUALLY DOES
He calls his media advisor.
HIM: Someone sent me this — a satire piece. Hollywood pitch format. About our situation.
ADVISOR: (already knows) Yes sir. It's circulating.
HIM: The comedy one says we're the straight man.
ADVISOR: That's… actually favorable positioning, sir.
HIM: The tragedy one says our hamartia is believing that winning meant something would change.
Pause.
ADVISOR: I would not share that interpretation widely.
HIM: The horror one says the TV debates are the literal monster.
ADVISOR: (genuinely) I mean, they're not wrong—
HIM: And there's an assistant. Kevin. From our region. His grandmother has voted since 1977.
Long pause on the line.
ADVISOR: What do you want to do with it, sir?
WHAT HE WANTS TO DO
Share it. Genuinely. With a caption like "even Hollywood knows" or "the world is watching" — something that signals confidence, humor, self-awareness. The kind of leader who can laugh at himself is the kind of leader people trust.
The Strategist says: too risky, the tragedy framing will be clipped and used against you, Todd's thriller version implies corruption in your ranks, someone will quote the hamartia line out of context by evening.
The Ego says: but we come out well in every version.
The True Believer says nothing. He's still thinking about the grandmothers.
WHAT HE ACTUALLY DOES
He screenshots Kevin's section only.
Sends it to his personal group of three people — his oldest political confidant, his youngest campaign coordinator, and someone whose judgment he trusts more than anyone else in the room but who holds no official position.
No caption. Just the screenshot.
His oldest confidant replies: 🙏
His youngest coordinator replies: "Sir this Kevin is basically [name redacted] from our Trichy office."
The third person replies, after four minutes: "The grandmother line is true. Don't forget it when the arithmetic gets complicated."
THE PRESS CONFERENCE THAT AFTERNOON
He fields questions about coalition negotiations.
He is measured. Careful. Says the right things about mandate, about people's trust, about responsible politics.
A journalist asks: "Sir, there's a satirical piece circulating, a Hollywood pitch format, about the current political situation — have you seen it?"
He smiles. Not the practiced smile. The other one.
HIM: I've seen many things circulating. People are creative. That's democracy.
JOURNALIST: Does it bother you — the framing, the comedy angle—
HIM: What bothers me is a different question. What bothers me is whether the person who stood in line to vote feels, three weeks later, that it mattered.
He moves to the next question.
The journalists write down the coalition update.
Two of them, independently, write down the last thing he said in a separate notebook. Not for the article. Just for themselves.
THAT NIGHT
The negotiations continue in a five-star hotel.
Someone orders a continental breakfast at an inappropriate hour.
He reads a briefing document.
Somewhere in the margin, in his own handwriting, barely legible:
"stubborn and extraordinary"
Whether it's a reminder or a question mark, even he isn't sure.
KEVIN'S GRANDMOTHER, UNAWARE OF ALL OF THIS
Makes her coffee.
Goes to bed.
Will vote in the next election.
END
LinkedIn Newsletter Article
No comments:
Post a Comment