Is it better to be authentic and controversial, or elusive and comforting?
The personal quality of authenticity might best be described in the same way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once defined pornography. Straining mightily to find a way to describe it, he settled for “I know it when I see it.” While it is a particularly inelegant example, knowing it when you see it is perhaps the best — or only — way to evaluate a crucial element of character that cannot be quantified.
For years now, frustrated voters have claimed to be particularly concerned with authenticity. It was undoubtedly a critical element in the shocking election of Donald Trump in 2016, when most observers agreed that, while Trump was an authentic but blunt instrument, Hillary Clinton presented as inauthentic. The assumption has long been that…
