A head of state governs only as a simulacrum of himself

Evidence

Everything happens as if Mao or Franco had already died several times and had been replaced by his double. From a political point of view, that a head of state remains the same or is someone else doesn’t strictly change anything, so long as they resemble each other. For a long time now a head of state - no matter which one - is nothing but the simulacrum of himself, and only that gives him the power and the quality to govern. No one would grant the least consent, the least devotion to a real person. It is to his double, he being always already dead, to which allegiance is given. This myth does nothing but translate the persistence, and at the same time the deception, of the necessity of the king’s sacrificial death. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 95

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows the simulacrum at the level of political sovereignty: the ruler is always already dead, allegiance goes to the double.
• BMF: The double who replaces a ruler already ‘dead’ evokes 2001’s Discovery astronauts and the recurring doubles in We’s logic of impersonality — though the strongest resonance is with Vidal’s Eighteen Seventy’s sense of politicians as hollow ritual figures for the people’s sacrificial demand.
• XREF: connects to: The state conceals rather than reveals actual political practice — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 633; Modern political authority is never present, only represented as standing apart — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 553; The best bill drafter in a state government can displace the governor’s own laurel — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 622 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The state conceals rather than reveals actual political practice #expands (0.78) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 633
• Modern political authority is never present, only represented as standing apart #expands (0.75) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 553