In his infamous love letters to Hannah Arendt, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote, “Love transforms gratitude into loyalty to ourselves and unconditional faith in the other.” This directly mirrors the experience of constituents whose initial support matures into steady loyalty to a politician, even though all politicians are, by nature, separate from the voter. Love is profound precisely because it involves a substantial, life-altering bond between people who, despite their intimacy, will forever be separate. As Heidegger puts it, “A human fate gives itself over to another human fate.” This is as much the nature of love as it is the nature of politics.

¶ 6:25 AM