Like, a big problem with doing this kind of information management where you try to hide your connections and affiliations is that it’s really hard for people to come to trust you again afterwards. If you get caught doing this, it’s extremely hard to rebuild trust that you aren’t doing this in the future, and I think this dynamic usually results in some pretty intense immune reactions when people fully catch up with what is happening.
I would have guessed that this is just not the level of trust people operate at. like for most things in policy people don’t really act like their opposition is in good faith so there’s not much to lose here. (weakly held)
A claim I’ve heard habryka make before (I don’t know myself) is that there are actual rules to the kind of vague-deception that goes on in DC. And something like, while it’s a known thing that a politician will say “we’re doing policy X” when they don’t end up doing policy X, if you misrepresent who you’re affiliated with, this is an actual norm violation. (i.e. it’s lying about the Simulacrum 3 level, which is the primary level in DC)
I would have guessed that this is just not the level of trust people operate at. like for most things in policy people don’t really act like their opposition is in good faith so there’s not much to lose here. (weakly held)
A claim I’ve heard habryka make before (I don’t know myself) is that there are actual rules to the kind of vague-deception that goes on in DC. And something like, while it’s a known thing that a politician will say “we’re doing policy X” when they don’t end up doing policy X, if you misrepresent who you’re affiliated with, this is an actual norm violation. (i.e. it’s lying about the Simulacrum 3 level, which is the primary level in DC)