Thread by @normative

I’d actually extend the metaphor. What we’re seeing looks an awful lot like the sort of face-saving indirectness we’re all familiar with when a pair of acquaintances start inching toward a romantic relationship.

https://twitter.com/jonst0kes/status/1326191547776438274

As in: pre-Tinder people didn’t usually just say “Hey, I think we should begin having sex.” You’d get drinks or coffee, and if there was no chemistry, or at any rate, one person didn’t seem disposed to move things forward, no worries, it was just drinks or coffee.

Linguist @sapinker talks about how this kind of indirect speech works as a kind of gradual commitment mechanism when you’re proposing something—a sexual relationship, a bribe—that involves risk (emotional or legal) if the other party isn’t interested.

Likewise, there’s risk involved in staging a soft coup if you’re not sure that (for instance) state officials or friendly judges are willing to play along with a gambit to nullify election results. You can’t just ask outright. You inch up to it, leaving an escape hatch.

If (as seems likely) the other necessary actors won’t play along, you can bail. “We were humoring him.” “There was no harm in letting the process play out.” But if, against all odds, it works, you were a team player all along.