The anticlimax that’s/would be the Comey testimony proves one thing I’ve all the time thought of skeletons within the closet. They need to be launched early when not everyone seems to be paying consideration.
The premise is that outrage is one thing that must be coordinated. Its not sufficient for everybody to really feel outraged. Its not even sufficient for everybody to know everyone seems to be feeling outraged. The sensation of concern needs to be widespread data. Solely that method sufficient individuals know that once they act on their outrage there will likely be sufficient others performing on their outrage for it to be a motion that may have influence. (Outrage is a scarce useful resource.)
So skeletons launched someday prior to now when no one was really searching for skeletons is a option to dampen that coordination. As a result of then when the time comes and persons are really centered on you and any skeletons you might need, the outdated already-uncloseted skeletons can’t have the identical influence as a model new one launched proper now when everybody sees it for the primary time. They’re “outdated information” (and its no surprise that’s a go-to line of protection towards resurrected skeletons.) Strategically everybody infers that for the reason that skeletons didn’t trigger outrage on the time they need to not be that outrageous to that many individuals and so they aren’t a name to outrage now.
So regardless of the a number of outrageous issues within the Comey assertion, they’re all outdated information and that feeling of anti-climax is a symptom of the above logic. If Comey had not previewed his testimony within the previous weeks however as an alternative dropped it as one model new bombshell on TV in entrance of a Tremendous Bowl viewers (paging Michael Chwe) the identical skeletons would trigger considerably extra outrage.
An attention-grabbing corollary is that leaks are literally Trump’s ally. Leaking the scandal little by little via diversified and segregated media channels is a method of getting the skeletons out with minimal influence effectively prematurely of any likelihood of concern.
(There’s a brand new paper by Gratton, Holden and Kolotilin that additionally appears at bombshells however I believe the argument is slightly completely different.)
