Now, it is important to acknowledge that politics and the exercise of political power have always had a theatrical dimension: rites and ceremonials in earlier societies, parades, commemorations, election campaigns and debates or meetings of leaders at international summits in modern times, have all involved elements of a theatrical performance. But these elements (just as was the case with court jesters) played an auxiliary – albeit important – role which consisted in providing the existing order with solemnity and gravity, and, ultimately, with additional legitimacy.
Today, by contrast, these elements are becoming more and more central to the political: it is now all about the image of leaders, their communication skills, the way they dress, speak or shake each other’s hands, they way they manage their Twitter and Instagram accounts. In a way, similar to Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre, politics increasingly immerses itself in everyday life and thereby, necessarily, increasingly desacralizes itself. [...]
It is a symptom of a profound social malaise, greatly intensified in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and, in particular, the way it was dealt with: taxpayers first paid for the rescue of those who caused it, and then suffered austerity measures that were presented to them as the only option by those in power and which aggravated the problems of millions of households
